To Look Into Her Eyes
by Maeve Riannon
Summary: After he contracts a deadly illness, Kenshin returns home once more. But how will his family and friends react as the truth slowly becomes known? This is the end, with an epilogue uploaded.
1. Return

**Note: **This is the first chapter of a fic that will be about four chapters long if I have my way. It revolves around Seissou Hen Kenshin, and I´m putting a dreadful effort into keeping everybody in character, considering both the manga and the OVAs, so suggestions are very much appreciated. In fact, I´m not ashamed of confessing that this is the result of an inner challenge: how to prove that Seissou Hen is not ourtrageous and has its explanations.

Two random things:

a)About Kenji: Against the trend of making him hate his father since he was born, from everything I ve seen, I´ve been able to gather that probably he did not feel angry before he became an adolescent and did not definitely freak out before Kenshin left for China. The "He hates his dad" of Volume 28 must be only a joke: it´s impossible for a toddler to hate his father for no reason. In fact, if we consider that babies feel uncomfortable with nervous persons, I´m afraid he would have felt more uncomfortable with his mother.

b)About ages (useful information): Kenshin is 43. Kaoru is 32. Kenji is 13. Yahiko is 25, Tsubame too (I think), and Megumi is 37. Oh, and Hiko is 58.

To Look Into Her Eyes 

**Chapter One: Return**

The place was dark and dirty, the dirtiest he had ever seen in his life. There was a  horrible smell of putrid blood floating in the air, and the suffocation, provoked by the unnatural heat of so many unfortunate bodies, was so unbearable that it felt to him as if the room was going to explode. Now and then, an anguished cry pierced the shadows.

"I´m sorry. I´m very sorry." he whispered. The woman with unnaturally swollen eyes, who did not care anymore about hiding the bleeding ravages of her body with the ragged blanket, gave another whine.

"I´m going to die. Don´t leave me…"

"You are not going to die yet. The doctor said so! I´m coming back in two weeks…."

"One week", the woman insisted with a croaked voice. "I have one week left."

"But…"

"Only one!"

It was useless, he thought, shaking his head with exasperation and pity. Either he went away without even saying anything, or he would have to get acquainted with the idea of staying there forever. How many times had she said now that it would be only a week, how many weeks had his stay been prolonged? He had lost count.

How much would they hate him in Tokyo by now?

_For them, we´re not human beings. We are buried here alive until we cannot breathe anymore._

"Please…"

The woman´s eyes were gleaming with an eerie light, as if she really saw Death through them. As familiar as he was to all its forms by now, Himura Kenshin could not help but shudder. He could not stand those eyes.

"I cannot stay here for so much time", he finally said. "I... I have family."

"Family…" the woman repeated with longing, resting her head once again and quickly beginning to fall asleep. "That was nice… wasn´t it?"

Kenshin felt another knot forming in his throat.

"One week." he promised in a broken voice. "Only one."

*     *     *     *     *

The day that Kenshin finally arrived to the Tokyo station on the morning train, he was feeling more weary and old than what he had ever felt before. His body was stiff, his limbs ached, and his hands and feet were in a state of raw pain for some unknown reason that probably had much to do with standing all night and changing bandages all day. To add to all this, besides, he had not slept decently for ages, and he could see everybody staring at him because of the way he trailed towards his home.

_Now, let´s see if they are going to welcome me or to throw me out…_

He had stretched his time unbelievably, and he knew it. Since he had started taking care of the sick, in fact, it could well be said that he had never arrived home when he had promised he would. There were always too many, and too little time, and, just like when he had been a swordsman, he felt he had to surpass his limits and push his faltering body to an inhuman extent, letting this be both his penance and his making up for all the time he had lived ignoring what lay behind what was licit and proper to see. Sincerely speaking, those innocents he had always protected with his sword had never had anything to do with these people. They were a different world, a world of misery and suffering which had always existed, which could be compared to no war, and to which he, in spite of having been a hitokiri who thought he had seen Hell, would never wholly belong. And, in a way, it was because of this that he had promised to give his life to them now. He knew he had always found inner strength to back his iron will and carry out all his purposes, so, even if this one was more difficult, and he was not what he was when he had fought Shishio and Enishi, he did not plan to let it be the exception. 

It was his family, the ones he left behind for this, and who missed him so much and were so upset with him for his long absences, the only thing that hurt him about that decision. As much as he tried to visit them as many times as he could, as much as he suffered any time he had to leave Kaoru alone, and see Kenji at each time more embittered with him, he could not say he felt guilty… a hard thing to say, but true nevertheless. They were not alone, they had each other, and Yahiko, and Tsubame and Tae. They had good health, they had their lives and their hopes. While all those people…they had no one.

_To protect ones, you have to kill others. To let some live, you have to leave others to die._

All his life had been full of hard decisions, indeed. He _had_ killed people to protect others, too many people. He had shattered his own body to follow an oath, and he had caused suffering to the people he loved the most to ease the sufferings of people who were loved by nobody. And still, as he always thought as soon as he reached the gates of the Kamiya compound and saw those who were waiting for him there, he would never get used to it. It hurt.

"Kenshin!" Her voice trembling of joy, Kaoru rushed towards him and embraced him, not minding at all Yahiko and Tsubame´s respective disgusted and shy looks. Her fierce attack, however, was too much for what Kenshin could handle in his state, and he nearly lost his footing trying to hold her.

"Kaoru-dono…"he said, her shocked expression as she got away and started to check his lamentable state not lost upon him. He only knew how to get older, but she was more beautiful each day. "I´m home."

"Kami-sama….Kenshin!" she cried, forgetting even to welcome him in her worry. "You look so… tired!"

"You look horrible". Yahiko corrected helpfully as he came near. "Have you come walking all the way?"

"All the way from the station", Kenshin answered with a brief rueful smile that hid a good share of nostalgy. "I´m glad to see you again, Yahiko. And Tsubame-dono too."

"Uh…thank you."As usual, Tsubame blushed. "Welcome home, Kenshin-san. I brought some food from…."

Before she could even finish the sentence, though, a noise of footsteps was heard behind them and made her stop. Soon, following her example, everybody turned back to see Kenji walking slowly towards them, a scowl in his face.

"Kenji…"Kenshin felt his heart sink momentarily as he saw the red haired boy. "You…have grown much. I´m glad to see you."

"You are late. Again." Kenji answered. At these words, Tsubame averted her glance, Kaoru sighed, and Yahiko shot him a warning look. 

"Kenji-kun…" he began.

"He´s right." Kenshin interrupted Yahiko with a weary sign of his hand. "I´m late. And I´m sorry for this, though it couldn´t be helped. Now… why don´t we all go inside?"

He could feel the awkwardness he had created behind him, as well as if he had had eyes on his back. Kaoru was feeling guilty, Tsubame was feeling awful, and Yahiko was silently promising Kenji that they would talk about that issue later. For a moment, he remembered those times when Kenji had been happy each time he arrived, no matter how late it was, and once more concluded that it all was his own fault.

And yet, as he told himself once more while he crossed the familiar courtyard, it really _couldn´t_ be helped.

*     *     *     *     *

"Megumi-san is going to arrive somewhere around tomorrow."

"Is she? "Kenshin paused for a moment in his meal." Oh, this is very good news! I really look forward to see her."

"I know you will have many things to talk about", Kaoru said meaningfully, after swallowing the morsel of food she had in her mouth. "Oh, Tsubame-chan, this is delicious!"

"Thank you", Tsubame answered, blushing once more. "Kaoru-san is right. "she added, turning towards Kenshin. "Since you both take care of the sick people, you can exchange impressions about your work. I… I admire both of you for that, I really do."

"Uh…Actually, I´d say she´s more admirable, since her skills save many people. I just try to help…", Kenshin muttered distractedly . He had not been able to avert his eye from Kenji since the start of the meal, while, on his part, Kenji had done everything he could to ignore him. He knew also that Kaoru had noticed the little game, and that she was wishing for it to stop, but so did he, too.

"So, how is your training progressing, Kenji?" he decided to ask in the end, changing the subject. Kenji could not suppress a start, and reluctantly raised his eyes from his plate.

"Uh? Very well, thank you."

"Pathetic", Yahiko intervened, earning himself a glare from the adolescent. "His last Hawatari was pitiful."

"Far better than _yours _at my age, I´d swear, Mr I-Know-Everything!" Kenji shouted. Yahiko lost no time to jump at that remark.

"Hey, you brat! How do you dare to say those things to your instructor!"

"He certainly reminds me of someone else", Kaoru intervened, suppressing a giggle. "_Assistant _instructor."

At this, everybody had to laugh (except Yahiko, of course), and even Tsubame joined the hilarious choir for a while before she gathered her composure and blushed, ashamed for laughing at her husband.

"You can come and see me anytime you want, anyway", Kenji continued, affecting indifference. "This way you´ll see _I´m _the one who´s right."

"Okay, now you´re definitely going to get it!"

"Bite me!"

"Shut up, both of you, or I´ll throw you out of MY house!"

"Easy, easy..." Without any difficulty, Kenshin found himself again falling into his old habit of calming the exalted discussions of his family members. Somehow, though, he had to confess he was glad of having started it this time, since it had worked surprisingly well to relax the tensions and make things start to fall back to their place, after the long awkwardness that always followed his late returns. Pity that, as always, once he had eventually sorted things out, he would have to leave again… "I´ll be glad to watch you, Kenji. But you cannot trust me to be a judge, I´m afraid."

"Well." Kenji shrugged his shoulders. "It´s not as if I cared or anything, after all."

*     *     *     *     *

After finishing the meal, and though it was evident for him that she was burning in badly concealed desire of being left alone with him, Kaoru realized that Kenshin really had to rest. He needed to have all the peace and quiet he could get, she said, so she was going to walk the children home – at this point, she purposefully ignored Yahiko´s fierce glare - while he slept. Kenshin made some weak attempt to protest at this decision, but when she made clear she wouldn´t have it any other way, he resigned and thought that, in spite of everything, she was right.

"I´m staying. I´m not a babysitter of people who are older than me." Kenji announced as he saw they were preparing to leave. Yahiko immediately opened his mouth to protest, but Kaoru stopped him.

"Have your way." she said. "But do not disturb your father."

"And why would I?" her son retorted petulantly.

"Yeah, why would you?" Yahiko grumbled. Then, he turned towards Kenshin. "Hey, I hope you have a good rest. Tomorrow, I´m expecting you to rise and shine!"

"All right." Kenshin smiled tiredly. "I´ll try."

*     *     *     *     *

Soon, though, Kenshin found that to keep his word would be far more difficult than what he had thought in the beginning. He was literally losing conscience when his clumsy hands unfolded the futon and he let himself drop down on it, but, once he was lying there, his scarce minutes of sleep were as restless as they could be. Each time he closed his eyes he felt himself pierced by swollen and sickly eyes, and his ears rang with cries of help until he woke up and tried to jump from the bed, to then remember where he was and wrap himself in the blanket with a shiver.

_One more week. Please, one more week. Don´t leave me with them…_

Was she dead?  Was she alive, waiting for him? The doctor had told him she had still months to live on, but he had preferred to believe her since she had been right when she had said that those who took care of them were heartless and did not mind what happened to them. However, in the end, he had had to comply.

_You don´t know what it is to be like this. You don´t know. You´ll never know._

Her eyes had become red after starting fixedly at the faded lamplight for so long.

_I´m sorry. I´m very sorry. I promise I will return._

_You are late. Again._

Suddenly, Kenshin regained complete consciousness, and he realized that what was ringing in his ear were battle cries. His son´s battle cries.

_Kenji…_he thought, getting up worriedly… to then realize that the boy was not fighting, but training. There were no battle cries belonging to another person, and his sword wasn´t meeting another, but something softer. 

Evidently, trying to rest was useless.

He had to return soon. They needed him. He knew that until he returned he wouldn´t cease having those restless dreams, and his inner censor that always acquired such mastery inside his mind and body since the moment he made a determination would never cease haunting him. But his family… didn´t they need him too, to spend those days with them without other cares and worries than those related to them?

He had to find a way to sort this out. To somehow forget everything else whenever he was with them. But how could he? How would someone… forget…?

His thoughts were brusquely interrupted as he tried to get up and his ears began to ring, making him lose his balance and fall back, his head hurting. He was too surprised to utter a sound, so for a while he laid there, stupefied and clenching his teeth to handle the pain. Was he really so ruined? Had lack of sleep affected him that much?

_It wasn´t like that before,_ he remembered with a sigh, doing another more cautious effort as the pangs began to disappear. It was not the first time he had a headache, but in that unhealthy place he had found it rather normal . His hands hurt as he used them to get up from the wooden floor, for they were full of sores.

_I will live and forget for a while, _he concluded, walking towards the shoji and pulling it open. _If I don´t…a time might arrive when I won´t be able to help either of them._

And this, he added silently to himself, would truly be his death.

*     *      *     *     *

Kenji was doing his kata in the yard, his red hair flying in the wind as he performed sucession after sucession of smooth and perfect moves under the crimson sun of the last hours of dusk. His skill was admirable, and, even though he was holding a bokken and not a katana, his speed was so amazing that not many people would have been able to watch and understand what he was doing. For Kenshin, the dance had something enchanting, eerie, and he stayed there watching it as if mesmerized while his mind brought him back the remembrances of another, shorter redheaded boy, who had spent those hours doing the same. Well, he chided himself, the same but with a heavy katana. And jumping so high he had often hurt himself in the fall….

"Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu, Ryu Tsui Sen!" Kenji cried, taking impulse and ascending like an arrow towards the red sky. Seemingly oblivious of the shocked stare of his progenitor, he came down at the same speed, and hit his target with such accuracy and strength that it was split in two.

"Ouch", he growled, checking his limbs after he had also collided with said target. "Wasn´t this supposed to have some kind of trick to land correctly?"

"Kenji!" Unable to resist any longer, Kenshin got up and walked towards him. "What are you doing?'"

"Well, I thought you would know!" Kenji answered, apparently not surprised at all at his sudden presence there. "Hiko-san´s words were "Your father learned this one quite well to be him.""

"When has Shishou taught you _this_? How…?" No, this couldn´t be true. Kenshin closed his eyes and tried to gather his wits repeating it surely had been a hallucination, but it was to no avail. Pure worry and fear was pumping loud in his head, and not even words came correctly to his mouth.

"The last time I was at his house." Once again, Kenji was feigning indifference, though if Kenshin hadn´t been so horrified he would have been able to perceive a fierce desire of approval behind his cold glance.

As things were, though, he could not bring himself to give him any.

"Does your mother know that you are learning Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu?"

"Ummm…no", Kenji shrugged his shoulders. "She would not understand."

_How…how dare he?_ Slowly but steadily, a deep anger directed at his Shishou was beginning to gather inside Kenshin.  _How dare he mess with my decisions?_

Though, on the other hand... hadn´t he always had good reasons to do everything he did?

_Well, I hope he will have a **very **good reason this time!, _he growled to himself, clenching his fist under the long sleeve of his kimono. _Because even if I don´t have time, I will find a day to climb up his mountain and tell him exactly what I…_

_Baka deshi. So you leave your son alone and then dare to criticise the ways of those who raise him? It was your responsibility and you left it to others, and therefore you should be thanking me and bringing me sake!_

Empathy was a scary thing.  Even before attempting that trip, he had heard clearly in his mind what Hiko would say. And yet…_why…_?

"Did I do it well, or not?"

"Uh?" Kenshin raised his head and attempted a weak smile. "Yes. I wouldn´t have done it better. You will be a really great swordsman one day, Kenji. But tell me… how was it that mastering the Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu didn´t leave you satisfied?"

Kenji threw his bokken to the ground, and snorted.

"Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu is nice, but it´s not good enough for me. I need a stronger technique."

"Yahiko said the same as you one day. In the end, he accepted the Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu as his style and became one of the strongest swordsmen there are today", Kenshin argued, though at the same time something told him that it was useless. He had had it in the back of his head before, but now it had become clear –or should have become clear- as he saw his son performing the Ryu Tsui Sen… even if he didn´t want to recognize it, Kenji was not the same as Yahiko.

_Maybe he needs it. Indeed he would be better than I was at his age if it wasn´t because I was pushed far harder. If he was forever restrained to the Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu... maybe he would be suffocated.  Did Shishou see that, and I didn´t?_

_But…what about his health?_

_He´s not you. He´s taller, he´s stronger…and he´s still growing. He can handle it. You couldn´t…but you didn't care._

_And what if he….if he commits the mistakes that I committed?_

_He won´t. We live in a time of peace. He lives in peace. He has Kaoru and Yahiko…and Shishou…_

"You are going to tell her, aren´t you?"

"What?" Snapped away from his reverie, Kenshin turned back to Kenji.

"I know you will. You don´t want me to be stronger than you."

_Just like his baka father when he was his age,_ Hiko´s voice snorted inside his mind. _This, of course, the year before you did the worst stupidity anyone had heard about in the last centuries…_

"You are very wrong, Kenji." Kenshin sighed. "If I don´t want you to be like me it´s just because I don´t want you to suffer like I did."

"Bah!" His son shrugged his shoulders. "I won´t ever let myself be fooled by some stupid politician."

Unable to decide if this was meant as a reassurance or as an insult, Kenshin decided to take it as the former, and nodded.

"I know. After all, you have your mother by your side, the master of Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu. But you´re almost a man now… and I hope you understand my concern. The Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu changed my life. It gave me power, but it also wrecked first my soul, and then my body. Even if I know this isn´t likely to happen to you, I´m worried."

"You don´t have to worry about me. I´m more than capable of taking care of myself. And still…"

"What?" Kenshin looked up again, and was surprised at the expression in his son´s eyes. He had never seen him like that before… a mature look that almost scared him. It was as if Kenji had grown several years in a minute. "Do you want to… tell me something?"

"Yes. And I will do so now that Yahiko and the others are not there to tell me to shut up because you are my father. As I was saying", the boy sat down next to him, "I can take care of myself. But _she_ cannot."

"Do you mean Kaoru?" Kenshin´s surprise increased. "But of course she can! You don´t know how strong your mother is."

"No, it´s _you _who doesn´t know!" Kenji´s voice rose to a shout without aparent transition. "She smiles when you go away, and smiles when you return. But do you know what she did when you wrote that letter saying that you would stay in that forsaken place a week longer? She got inside her room and she cried all night! I heard her! And I…" he ceased shouting, though only to intensify the passion of his next statement, "have not forgiven you yet."

As in a dream, Kenshin saw his son getting up and turning away from him. He told him to stop, but his plea was unheard, and, when he was getting up to follow him and bring him back, his ears started to ring again. At first, he tried not to pay attention, but he felt his head beginning to explode and he fell down to the floor.

The last thing he remembered as he closed his eyes was Kenji´s frightened face.

*     *     *     *     *

"Ken…ji…"

"You awake?" The voice came from a great distance, as if he was hearing it from the depths of a cavern. His eyes did not want to focus at first, though after repeated efforts he could see he was back on his futon, Kenji at his side. For a moment, he even toyed with the idea that he might have dreamed about the conversation they had held before, but he had to discard it shortly after.

_Unfortunately, it had been real._

"Hey, what happened to you? You scared me shitless! Is this your way of telling me I can´t upset you?"

"It was not that." Kenshin whispered, feeling a wave of pain at recognizing the hidden guilt in his son´s eyes as he sat down. "It´s just that I´m so very tired… But listen to me. I deserve anything you have to tell me. I have never intended to dodge deserved reproaches in my life, and I´m not planning on starting now. But, Kenji…."

He was a man now. It was no longer with childish tantrums that he had confronted him, and he would have to answer accordingly. And Kaoru…

_The truth._

"Kenji… When the Bakumatsu was over, many years ago, I made an oath to atone for all the lives I had taken away because of my foolishness, and to help the people with my sword skills. I did so for many years… and during that time I met your mother, and I married her. I regret it."

"What?" Kenji´s face was as livid as rice powder, and Kenshin winced internally. 

"No, I don´t regret it because of what you are thinking. I don´t regret it because I do not love her anymore, or because I didn´t love her back then. I love her so much it hurts. But, even though I wanted her so much, I told myself that our marriage was something that should never happen, for her sake. And so I evaded her for long. I vowed to protect her, I lived with her and I was kind to her, but I never let her know I loved her. I thought she would find another man, live happy and forget about me... until a series of events happened to both of us and it became apparent to me that in spite of my wishes, she was never going to find another, that she was bound to me in such a way that it was impossible for us to fall apart, and that she… and that she _knew _what would it be like and accepted it. She had shared my past. My oaths. The dangers I was exposed to…and still, she wanted me."

"And couldn´t you leave it behind even for _her sake_?" Kenji´s voice sounded less acid now, but still hurt. Kenshin shook his head, not sure of being capable of explaining something like that.

"I left it behind for four years, Kenji", he started nevertheless. "You were born in the interval, and we were very happy at having been granted such a great gift. However, when I was thirty-three or so, and as Megumi-dono had predicted, I ceased to be able to hold a sword. Everybody, myself included, thought that this was the end, that I wouldn´t be able to uphold my oath anymore, and that I would stay at home. But… I couldn´t. I started having nightmares at night, very painful ones. My victims were chasing me, pulling and suffocating me. Their cries… they rang in my ears each night, even at day when I stopped to think. I… I began to go insane. I scared everybody, and above all your mother."

"My, that you are… weird." There was some emotion behind Kenji´s features, though for once Kenshin was actually unable to discover which one. Instead, he chose to continue without making any comments.

"I knew then that I had to continue, no matter what, and even though I could not hold a sword anymore. I would help normal people, with their normal things. Sick people… injured people… poor people... whatever. I formally asked your mother´s permission, and, understanding, she gave it to me."

"She´s very selfless". Kenji muttered.

"Yes, indeed she is. Since the very first time I met her she has been the most selfless person I have ever known", Kenshin nodded. "But listen to me… What had started at first as a quest to save myself from my demons soon gave a dramatic spin when I discovered a world I had always ignored. Sick people… they are no abstractions, Kenji. Indeed they aren´t. You cannot even imagine what lies inside a hospital for syphilitics. You don´t know how lepers look like. They´re locked away from the sight of normal people, confined in unhealthy quarters or hospitals until they die forgotten for everybody, since the Western-oriented government we have started regarding public health as a matter of pride before the European nations. Their pain… it´s unbearable.

"Last week, a dying woman pleaded to me to stay with her a week more until she passed away. She´s terrified of the people that are supposed to look after her, because syphilitics are mistreated on a regular basis by their own caretakers, did you know? Her body is all bleeding, she cannot move anymore and most of the times she can´t even remember who she is." Kenshin sighed at seeing Kenji´s shock, and lowered his gaze. "I´m sorry, my son. But you deserved to know everything."

A long silence floated between the two after those words.

"Does…she…know?" Kenji ventured at last. "Mother, I mean."

"Yes." Kenshin nodded. "She does. And she´s so selfless she took good care from then on not to make me put her before any of them. Though I know she suffers, like everyone. I… I suffer too. I miss her as much as she misses me, and I suffer each time I have to leave her alone... She promised she would take good care of you, as if she was both of us… and, in turn, I promised her I would come here as many times as I could manage, wherever I was at each moment. Of late, she was very worried because you were acting bitter towards me, and she felt as if it was her fault because she hadn´t fulfilled her part of the promise. I don´t mean you shouldn´t be… but I´ve told you everything so that you can judge for yourself. This way, in the worst of cases, she will know at least that your hate is my own fault. "

Silence fell once more. And this time, none of them interrupted it for a very long while.

"All right." Suddenly, Kenji got up brusquely and walked towards the door.  He did not turn his face, but Kenshin could have sworn his tone was hoarse. "I suppose I shouldn´t hate you, since Yahiko tells me all the time. Besides, if I´m going to start making her cry as well, I´d better shut up, so I forgive you this time. But keep this in mind, Father… I won´t wait always. In only two years I will be a man and I will be able to choose. And then I expect you to ask _me _permission too!" 

"Kenji…"Kenshin shook his head with a half-painful smile. 

"Don´t worry." he reassured the closed shoji. "I will."

*     *     *     *     *

The following morning, as he woke up at dawn, Kenshin could not remember when had he exactly been able to fall asleep with a restful, dreamless sleep. In some point of the night, though, he was slightly disturbed at hearing muffled voices and footsteps coming towards him, and someone bending over him to throw something over his lean frame, but he was so tired that he only rolled over the futon and continued sleeping.

(to be continued)


	2. The Hard Truth

**Author´s Note: **First of all, thanks to all who reviewed. Reviews, of course, are always welcome, but your reviews were even especially welcomed, since they made me know you had liked the characterizations of Kenji and the Seissou Hen Kenshin, and this was what I was most worried about in that chapter. For me, in fact, Kenji was never a brat. I believe he loved his father, but that his father, by a tragical cumulus of circumstances, was not able to seize the opportunities he was offered. That´s one of the things I wanted to depict in this story: one of his last, maybe his last, opportunity. And also that none of them was entirely to blame for it, much less Kenji.

Finally, I forgot to put the disclaimer in the first chapter and say that Rurouni Kenshin belongs to Watsuki Nobuhiro. Anyway, I have always thought that, if I am publishing this as an entry for the Rurouni Kenshin category of a site called fanfiction.net, the fact that it´s not mine is implicited enough.

What was more grave, though, was that I forgot that Margit Ritzka has betaed all this. 

**1. ****To Look Into Her Eyes**

**Chapter Two: The Hard Truth******

A bird was singing loudly in the nearest tree when Kenshin opened his eyes the next morning. For a moment, and maybe because his head was full of the shrill tones of its song, he was not able to place where he was, but then he felt a slight pressure on his back and slowly began to turn away. His heart warmed at the sight offered to him, taking the last lingering uneasiness away from his mind.

_Kaoru._

Consciously or unconsciously, he did not know which one, she had snuggled up to him during the night. Until he had woken up and shifted from his position, her forehead had been resting on his back, her body curled in a ball and a pleased smile on her lips, and now, as he carefully placed a hand on her waist and drank the sight greedily with those eyes used to the utmost horrors, he thought that there surely couldn´t be anything lovelier in the world. Not a single worry creased her brow; there was no sadness in those eyes tightly shut in contentment. She looked like a child, a little girl who felt protected from the pain of the world here, in his arms….

A soft, yet keen sadness entered his heart at this thought, and tempered his happiness.

_Kaoru…_he thought, caressing each single one of her features with his eyes. _I´m so sorry…_

She was not aware of him or of his gaze, of his feelings or of his thoughts, but he would have sworn that her expression, even in her sleep, was meant to comfort him now and ease his doubts. In fact, to speak the truth, that was what she had been doing since the first years of their marriage, and there was no use in fooling himself into thinking it was the other way round. He was the one whose soul needed healing, whose body needed care, and whose decisions needed her support and her understanding…. and she, the little girl curled against him, had protected him with her strength. She had taken care of him all alone, with that quiet, though sometimes _noisy_ strength that she carried naturally and without the need of any training.

_And it had been enough for him._

Slowly, silently, but without being able to suppress the sudden urge, Kenshin´s face came closer to his wife´s, and his lips brushed hers. For a moment, he was ready to deepen the kiss, and to embrace her so tightly that he would feel inside him some of that strength, so full of love, hope and innocence in spite of everything… but still, his concerns about waking her up so early got into the way in the last moment and made him stop.

_She needs more rest…_

 "Mmmmm...Kenshin, why didn´t you do it?" a disappointed voice pouted at his side. Absolutely taken by surprise, the red haired man´s eyes widened.

"Kaoru! I... I thought you were asleep!"

"With that bird singing out there?" She shook her head, crawling to cover the short distance that separated them and resting her head on his chest. Her dark locks smelt of home, of rest and of clear mornings, and above all of cleanliness and of health; so he gladly buried his face in them. "I love to stay in bed with my eyes closed when it´s early in the morning, and I was happy to be with you. But Kenshin… you haven´t answered my question yet."

"Here." With a smile, Kenshin let her head gently rest on the pillow and bent over her to give her a kiss. "Was this the right answer?"

"Kenshin…" Her face was instantly flushed in pleasure, and she smiled with warmth. "Hmmmm! I think this is going to be a great day, don´t you?"

"Uhhh….yes, maybe. The weather seems quite…oro! Why did you pull my hair, dear?"

"It´s useless to explain." Kaoru grumbled, struggling to get into a sitting position and combing her hair with her hands before getting out of the futon. "You´re too stupid to understand!"

_I suppose this wasn´t the right answer…_he thought ruefully, trying to do the same. Then, however, as his hand touched the floor, he barely could suppress a surprised cry of pain, and cursed softly. The sores…he had forgotten all about them.

"Kenshin?" Kaoru´s hesitant voice asked from the other side of the room. "What´s the matter?"

"Nothing, my love." It came out of his system even before the instinct to check the damage. "I´m fine."

*     *     *     *     *

"Sit down, please. I will do it."

"No, no way! You come here to look after yourself for a change, so sit down and enjoy your time!"

"You speak as if I was sick or crippled, Kaoru-d…"

"You will be if you don´t listen to me!"

"I believe you are overreacting. It´s only an insignificant task and it isn´t going to make me break in two, it really isn´t…"

"Can´t anyone get a bit of sleep in this house?" Suddenly surprised in the middle of their usual first morning argument, both Kaoru and Kenshin turned back to see a sleepy Kenji standing in the doorway of the kitchen. He was looking at them as if the scene was too stupid to be true, and for a moment Kenshin had the scary feeling that they were his children instead of the other way round.

_I wonder if he´s spending too much time with Shishou…_

"It´s late enough for you to be awake, so don´t exaggerate." Kaoru retorted, as skilled at recovering her composure as usual. "You sleep more than Yahiko!"

Kenji shrugged his shoulders at that. 

"Who´s exaggerating now?"

His mother stared at him annoyedly. "Wash your face first and then we´ll talk. And now, back to the subject at hand…uh? Kenshin! What are you doing?"

As soon as he had realized that his wife was exclusively focused on his son for the present moment, Kenshin had lost no time and had begun preparing breakfast behind her back. He was aware of how childish his attitude could seem sometimes, but it had been like that since his bones began to ache for the first time and his muscles became so stiff he was unable to achieve  a decent swing. When his life as a swordsman had come to an end, not an insignificant part of his anxiousness and frustration had been about being absolutely useless and unable to protect his family and friends anymore. He needed to feel he could do at least that, and so, in spite of Kaoru´s wrath (partly caused, on the other hand, by the assumption that he felt it was a better option to toil in the kitchen than to eat _her _food), in the end he usually showed her why people had always called him stubborn.

"Preparing breakfast, Kaoru-dono", he answered innocently.

"Which is always the better option", Kenji added himself as he entered the kitchen again.

Prepared, out of instinct, to try stopping the inevitable, telling Kaoru to take it easy, to think that Kenji had copied that habitude from Yahiko, and that since he was old enough to remember her cooking had improved so much nobody could seriously criticise it anymore, Kenshin was astounded to realise that his wife was not reacting to Kenji´s remark at all. Belatedly, he realized that, though his son had always preferred his cooking to his mother´s, he hadn´t said it since at least two years ago.

A smile, meaningful though small, came spontaneously to his features.

*     *     *     *     *

About half an hour later, as all three were busy having their breakfast, Yahiko made his appearance. 

"Oh, come on..." he muttered in disbelief. "You are _still _having breakfast?"

"And you are _already _awake?" Kenji asked in turn, with the same disbelief all over his face. "Did you have a bad night or something?"

"The dojo is closed today, Yahiko, you should know", Kaoru intervened, slightly puzzled. "Or have you come to sneak food?"

Yahiko waved the remark away with disdain. "Why the hell would I want to sneak food from _you_? Tsubame cooks a hundred times better!"

"But you never have enough, do you?" Kenji, who had the firm belief that the only one allowed to insult his mother´s cooking was him, answered sharply.

"Will you shut up, you rude little…!"

"Is there something important that you have to tell us, maybe?" Kenshin intervened, quick as lightning.

 "Uh…No, not important. "Yahiko scratched his ear pensively. "But I had heard that Megumi was arriving here in the morning, so…Uh? Kaoru, what´s that face for?"

"Is anything wrong, Kaoru-dono?" Kenshin asked, puzzled as well as he saw that his wife was suddenly showing an expression of deep consternation.

"I…" Kaoru smiled a nervous smile. "Well… in fact… I remembered it yesterday when I told you in the morning, but later… I… I forgot it completely!"

"Great." Yahiko grumbled. "Now you make two!"

"Two?" Kenji asked curiously.

"Tsubame forgot too, and she promised to take care of our neighbour´s children today", the young samurai explained. "That´s why I came alone."

"But you could have told her to bring the children here as well." Kenshin laid his empty bowl on the table and got up.

"And impose on your hospitality? You know her, she never would have done something like th… hey, where are you going?"

"I think there´s still time to go to the market and buy food for everybody before Megumi-dono arrives", the redheaded man explained. "You can stay here and help arrange things a bit meanwhile."

"No, Kenshin." Already recovered from her embarrassment, Kaoru raised her head again to deathglare her husband. "You just arrived yesterday from living in a hospital for a month and a half! You are…"

"I will be fine, Kaoru-dono."

"This woman..." Yahiko shook his head. "It´s you who are going to make him sick if you keep on trying to imprison him all the time!"

"Don´t meddle in this!" Kaoru shouted, to vent her frustration on someone. "Kenshin…please, at least take Kenji with you."

"All right", he surrendered, seeing the pleading look in her eyes. He did not want to worry her even more, and besides, the sores in his hands would make it difficult for him to carry too many things. And, in fact, there was something he still had to discuss with his son, a thing that hadn´t been finished yesterday. 

"Are we leaving, then?" he asked Kenji as he gathered the buckets.

"Okay." his son answered, getting up and following him with a face. "We leave."

"Don´t be long!"

Even before the shoji closed wholly behind them, Kaoru gave a sigh.

"That man…." she growled, starting to clear the table with quick movements. Perceiving her worries, Yahiko let her vent without saying anything. "He does not even know the meaning of the word "_rest_". He comes here spent, exhausted, and I cannot get into his hard head that he has to recover his energy and let us do things for him for a change! He´s so… so…"

"You know how he is." Yahiko shrugged his shoulders in what was more or less intended as a calming gesture. "Let him have his way, that´s what I´m telling you until I get hoarse. You can shout, argue or even tie him up, but you won´t get him to stop unless he gets ill."

"But, Yahiko, this is impossible." For a moment, Kaoru surprised her assistant master with a glance that the young man wouldn´t easily forget. Her blue eyes were full of unrestrained concern, glimmering with sadness, and even he had to feel the shadow of a knot forming in his throat this time.  "He is ill already."

*     *     *     *     *

"I did not tell her anything", were the first words Kenji said after they had left the house. 

"Tell her what?" Kenshin asked, confused.

"That you fainted yesterday." his son replied with a somewhat lower tone. "I promise you I didn´t."

"That I return tired from my trips is not a secret, Kenji", Kenshin answered as calmly as possible. Inside him, however, he was already beginning to worry as well with the issue. His feet were aching too, but it wasn´t just the aches. Since he had left the closed security of his house, the noises and movements of the people in the street were making him feel… dizzy.

"You… well, you never really returned like that before. I think you should go and see a doctor…" the boy ventured awkwardly." You know how Mother is, she will believe you´re going to die or something until someone reassures her."

Now, it was true puzzlement, as well as unrestrained worry, the emotions which got to Kenshin´s mind as he heard his son say those words. If it had been Kaoru, he would have been concerned enough, but Kenji worrying so much about his health…

Was it so evident?

"Don´t worry on my account, today I will be visited by the best doctor in Aizu", he answered, forgetting even that Kenji hadn´t voiced his concern as if it was his own. As his son immediately protested in outrage, he smiled and apologised.

 "By the way", he changed the subject. "Did you tell Kaoru about the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu?"

"Uh...No, not yet", his son confessed. "I didn´t have time."

"Well, you can tell her today. This way you can tell Yahiko too."

"But, why?" Kenji let out a small sigh of frustration. "I mean, I´m sure she isn´t going to understand. And, besides, I will worry her to death." 

"Then why did you learn it?" Kenshin asked simply. The answer did not come for a long time, but he did not mind; he knew it was inevitable and so he waited.

"I see it´s _you _who doesn´t understand. "Kenji said at last, with an annoyed tone."I told you I wouldn´t do anything stupid with it and you accepted my answer, but you´re worried about that again! Don´t you trust me?"

"I trust you", Kenshin answered, turning to face him and spy his countenance as he spoke. "Of course I do. But I want your mother to trust you as well."

In that very moment, as soon as those words had left his father´s mouth, the boy´s face showed clearly how much they had affected him. Kenshin swallowed deeply when he noticed, but continued walking with determination. If there was a way he could help his family to overcome some of their problems in the time he spent with them, he would do it as best as he could.

"If you tell her, you won´t worry her much. But if she finds out by herself at some later point she may feel very worried, and I don´t want that for either of you. Please, tell her today." 

"All right." Kenji bowed his head in surrender. "I promise you now, I will. Just…don´t ask again, okay?" 

"Okay." Kenshin smiled. "I won´t. I leave it in your hands. By the way… let´s stop here a bit."

"Uh?" Kenji´s eyes widened. "What for?"

"My feet." he confessed, ashamed. "I think I need a rest."

*     *     *     *     *

"I think the best course would be to tell Megumi when she arrives", Yahiko said, as he helped Kaoru to search for a futon for the doctor. "She´s the only one who can tell you if it´s something serious or your usual fawning over him. Though, on the other hand, I suppose she fawns over him, too. Hmmm… I wonder how he does it."

Kaoru simply nodded again at those words. This was beginning to worry Yahiko to death, though he would never ever have dreamt of confessing it. To see Kaoru so openly concerned with Kenshin´s health was bad enough, but to see her simply nodding at statements that would have made her viciously throw her sandal against his head under normal circumstances was even worse. What could he do?

_Maybe…could work…_

"Kaoru…"

"What?"

"How can you be sure it isn´t **you **who needs to be seen by Megumi?"

"Uh?"

"Couldn´t Kenshin have left you pregnant the last time he left? This could explain many things about you in these las d… ouch! Hey, what was that for, you ugly hag!"

"So many years and such an ignorant little brat!" Kaoru growled in outrage as she retrieved her sandal. "Be sure I´m going to tell Tsubame about this, Yahiko-_chan_!"

Somewhat relieved, Yahiko rubbed the bump on his head before he started arguing again. It was a fact: she would never cease to be brutal.

It seemed that things were not that bad, after all.

*     *     *     *     *

When Kenshin and Kenji arrived at last, it was already so late that Kaoru had had plenty of time to feel nervous and be sure and certain that Megumi was going to step inside at one moment or another. Yahiko in particular was deeply grateful to see that they were back, for he had been already sent outside about fifteen times to check that a carriage hadn´t stopped in front of the dojo gate.

"One would think we´re waiting for an important person", he grumbled. "Hey, it´s just _Megumi_! It´s not as if she was going to go back to Aizu if the house is dirty of something…"

"Agreed!" Kenji nodded, panting as he left the huge quantities of food they had bought in the floor of the kitchen.

"Don´t complain so much. You´re rude kids who do not know anything about politeness." Kaoru intervened, as she immediately started to wash the rice and the vegetables. "Kenshin, I have prepared a bath for you and a clean kimono. You _cannot _welcome her in this state."

"Thank you very much, Kaoru-dono", Kenshin answered, turning back to leave. He was too tired at the moment to do anything else, but, somehow, he did not want her to notice.

_Kenji is right, _he said to himself, as he undressed minutes later in the bathhouse._ I have to ask Megumi to see me as soon as I can._

And yet… what on Earth could be the matter with him? He had carefully examined every option in his mind, and still he was not sure if it could be something horrible or the greatest nonsense in the world. Maybe he had got some infection while tending to the sick. Maybe he was just more tired than usual, as he had worked more than usual, and had got a mild fever because of that. Maybe the sores were the marks of a disease, or maybe they were the natural result of standing all day and doing so many things with his hands, like changing bandages and such.

Maybe, finally, he could just be getting old. 

_I´ll never get used to this_, he thought, putting his filthy green kimono away. Carefully, he got into the bath, and sighed when the hot water began to relax his aching muscles. He had almost forgotten how pleasurable a bath was. In fact,  he had not been even allowed to have the most remote thought of one since exactly a month and a half ago, when he last…

_Uh? What´s this?_

Suddenly snapped away from his musings, Kenshin looked closely at the parcel of his skin that had called for his attention. In the zone between his belly and his hip, excelling by its peculiar look among all the other battle scars, a new mark had started to appear.. It had a faint colour, and it was long and thin, really more like a fissure than like a wound, but he had positive it hadn´t been there the last time.

_Megumi-dono will have work here as soon as she arrives, _he told himself in silence. Of course, he would never confess it to anyone, but he was beginning to be seriously worried.

*     *     *     *     *

Fortunately enough for poor Kaoru – and for her two long-suffering "kitchen aides"-, Megumi had the detail of arriving later than expected, once the food was safely cooked and even the table set. She stepped down from her carriage with her usual gracefulness, bowed her thanks to the driver, and graced the boy who carried her luggage with a smile from which, as Kaoru thought enviously, he would surely get enough warmness for weeks.

"Welcome home, Megumi-san!" she beamed as her friend stopped in front of them and bowed in greeting.

"Oh, my…" The doctor shook her head. Under her mildly amused glance, Kaoru suddenly realized _she hadn´t had time to change her kimono after her kitchen exploits. "Did I come in a bad moment?"_

"The ugly hag was torturing us in the kitchen", Yahiko explained, with a tone that implied no less than the "torture" part was to be taken literally.

"Don´t call my mother like that!" Kenji shouted angrily. "Besides, it was _you_, the one who started the fire!"

"Easy, easy!" Somehow, Kenshin managed to manoeuvre his body in order to get himself between Yahiko and his son. "Please, come in, Megumi-dono. We´re all very glad to have you with us again."

"Ken-san! You are here! What wonderful coinciden…" The smile in Megumi´s face widened considerably as she saw him for the first time, but then, as she looked at him closely, it was replaced by a consternated look she had difficulties to smother. Even as she managed to make it pass unnoticed to the others, Kenshin could see it, and his own worries were increased even more.

"Oh, poor Ken-san!" she teased half-heartedly. "Has your wife been starving you? Don´t worry, I´m here now, and I will take good care of you!"

"Sorry to crush your theory, but he arrived yesterday", Kaoru replied, sensing also somewhat weird about Megumi and frustrated at not being able to put her finger on what it was. "So leave him alone. He´s too tired for you to fuss over him."

"Then it´s evident that what he needs is a doctor, isn´t it?" Megumi retorted with a wicked smile. Her eyes, however, were fixed in Kenshin´s, and they transmitted an unequivocal, sad and worried message. "He´s lucky I´m here to offer my medical services, right, Ken-san?"

"Ladies, ladies…" Weakly, Kenshin did a vague effort to continue the game and stop a teasing that wasn´t being taken as such by anybody. "Let´s get inside, all right? Megumi-dono must be very tired after her long journey. Yahiko, Kenji, could you please help her with her things?"

Before he turned away, though, his gaze met Megumi´s once more, and he nodded slightly, to let her know that he had understood.

*     *     *     *     *

"So?"

Megumi lifted her face from her close inspection of the rash that had just appeared on Kenshin´s skin, and sighed. She looked so tense that even the air she breathed somehow felt heavier.

"No matter how many years, you won´t ever turn into the beating about the bush type, will you?" she said. They were at last alone in a private room after they had finished having lunch, under the pretext of "having a talk about their job", but she was sure that the lie hadn´t passed wholly unnoticed. Especially after she had practically run into Kenji when she was sneaking her medical bag out from her room. 

"I need to know what´s exactly happening to my body", Kenshin answered. He felt it was useless to keep a mask on his face in her presence, since she knew better than him everything he had, and she seemed to have thought the same about her own. From the very moment he slid the shoji shut she hadn´t smiled again.

"You told me you spent the last month in a hospital for syphilitics, didn´t you?" she asked once more. This time, though, something in the question made a glimmer of meaning sink into his brain.

"Do you mean…?"

"And did you say that you didn´t notice this until today?"

"Yes. I hadn´t had a bath since the last time I was at home."

"And the sores on your feet are the same as those you have on your hands?"

"Yes. The same brown colour."

"And you had strong headaches yesterday?"

"Yes." 

"I…" For the first time since they had started, for the first time in many years, Takani Megumi hesitated. "I may have a diagnosis."

"And what is it? Tell me." Kenshin urged her. He was starting to feel…very impatient. He could have even sworn that his heart was beating louder. "You know you can tell me everything. There is nothing I´m not ready to take as long as it only involves me…"

But then, to his deep shock, Megumi started to laugh. It was not a normal laugh… he could perceive clearly that there was something deranged in it. Something broken.

"As long as it only involves you? You? Oh, Kami-sama!" As suddenly as it had started, her mirth subsided and gave way to a strangled sob. Immediately, she got away and turned her back on him, under the pretence of searching for something among her things, and Kenshin did not dare to stop her, fascinated as he was by her… totally new and frightening behaviour. He had known her in the very worst moments of her life, and yet he would have sworn that he had never seen her like that.

"Congratulations, Ken-san. You finally got what you wanted, what you were striving for during all your life. You finally wrecked yourself for good."

(to be continued)__


	3. Gift or Punishment

Well, here is Chapter Three at last. Sorry for the delay. What can I say? Here, the angst comes in loads at last. I also tried to show Tsubame´s connection with Kenshin, for, as it only appeared in the Jinchuu saga, and in the anime they forgot about it, many people don´t even know it exists. Again, thanks to all the reviewers, and to Margit for beta-ing this.

Disclaimer: Rurouni Kenshin belongs to Watsuki Nobuhiro. Seissou Hen doesn´t, though. ^_^

To Look Into Her Eyes 

**Chapter Three: Gift or Punishment**

Once upon a time, life had been a nightmare for her. She had been innocent, and that innocence had got her tangled in so many crimes that she had not been able to see the light of the day anymore, so drowned had she been in their hideous depths. Once upon a time, she had been childish and a coward, but not even by running away and hiding behind others she had been able to escape her sins. 

Once upon a time, she had needed a miracle. And very well did she know that no miracles would help her.

_I cannot save him._

He had not just freed her from the grasp of the heartless man who had needed her for his dark business. He had not just used the very sound of a name he had tried desperately to leave behind to save her from the police, and to conceal what she had done to allow her another chance. No, he had done far more than that… or she, she knew it very well, would be dead right now. Maybe killed by her own hands, or maybe just drowned in despair… she did not know how far her cowardice did go even now. 

_I cannot do anything for him._

When she had told him about the people who were searching for her, he had naturally asked who they were, and what business they did have with her. Then, to make things worse, the opium had fallen from the sleeve of her kimono, and she had known she had had lost her chance. However, he had unexpectedly agreed to help her, and when she had refused to speak about her past or her connection with the whole affair he had resigned himself with a sigh. He and his friends had defeated those horrible ninjas who had terrified her for so many years, and had given her some hope at last, after so many years of desperation. For the first time in her life, she had even felt that there was some good in her, that her skills could be used for something else than to kill people at a large scale, and that they still could bring hope to others who were in need. She had saved Yahiko´s life… and how happy they had been! 

Still, one can feel joy in hiding only for a short time, and, in the end, they had found out. Sanosuke´s anger had torn her heart in two, for she had killed his friend, as well as many others with the lethal drug she had been too weak to refuse to make. Kaoru had been shocked… that innocent girl surely would never have been able to suspect such evil in anyone, as she said bitterly to herself. But, just when she had been determined to leave, when she had attempted her first steps out of the threshold of the place where she had started to feel safe for the first time in her life, dreaming that somebody would come and stop her while knowing it was just a dream… it had happened. A man who had selflessly protected a woman who had lied to him and put him in danger, a _drug dealer_, stopping her from going back where she belonged and cease harming his friends… a man who had heard everything about her, and instead of feeling horror only felt compassion and understanding, and tried to convince her that she wasn´t evil….a man who offered to protect her once more….wasn´t he a miracle? What could a miracle possibly be then, if it wasn´t the miracle he represented?

_Nothing I could ever try…_

Of course, this had not been the only thing he had done for her. When she had had to pay heed to the threats of Kanryuu and return to him, he had come to rescue her with his friends, and defeated all the guards and the ninjas to get to her, putting his life in mortal danger. They had wanted her to live then, but she had believed she had to die, so, when Sanosuke prevented her from killing herself, she had decided to surrender to the police and pay for her crimes. She had been determined to be brave for once, even if it was the last thing she did… but then, before she ever had had the chance to speak, he had unexpectedly shut her mouth, and to her everlasting shock testified in the name of Himura Battousai that she had nothing to do with the drug dealers. She couldn´t believe it, and for a while had stayed there, petrified and unable to even close her mouth. The legendary hero of the cruel people who had burned her house and killed her family… how could he be that man? How could he be the only one who ever understood her, forgave her and risked his life for her? How could that be possible?__

And then, all of a sudden…. she had understood.

_Nothing I could ever do…_

It was thanks to him, and to everything he ever represented, from his past mistakes to his later kindness, that she could be alive now and a doctor in Aizu. Not only had he saved her, he had _paved_ the way for her. With a strong feeling of remorse and an iron will, he had proved that it was not wrong to believe in second chances, that the most hideous crimes in the world could be atoned for, and that any skill used to bring harm upon others could also be reversed like his blade and used to help them without ever surrendering. It had been his way… and it had been her way, too. Slowly, and as she turned back to helping people with her medical skills, she had recovered the old pride she had once felt for them, and that her family had always carried in their blood before she had tarnished it with her activities. She had been able to think about them again without burning in shame, and, as she grew as a professional and as a person, she left fear and cowardice behind; she had become the woman she was now. And all thanks to him.

_Why?_

How thankful she was to him, this was something she had never expressed because she knew there would be no words for it. She could only think that she would do whatever he asked her to, that whenever he was ill or injured she wouldn´t even sleep until he was well again, that she would give her life for him without thinking twice. That she would do whatever she had to, to make him be happy with the woman he loved… even if she loved him with all her heart herself. Everything, she would have done everything… until this day.

Now, for the first time in many years, all this was crumbling down. Her anguish was comparable to the anguish she had felt when she was trying to escape from Kanryuu, but much worse because she knew there was nothing she could do, and that her skills were not misused this time, but merely, simply, cruelly... insufficient. No matter what she did, no matter how she tried, she would not be enough. She had saved many people until that day, only to find that the one she needed to save the most, the one who had saved her, was beyond her reach. It was now, for once, that he needed her… and she was helpless, as helpless as if she had never learned anything in her whole life, as any other human being would be.

For the first time in all those years, she suddenly wanted to give up.

"Megumi-dono… Megumi-dono, please. Don´t cry…It´s all right, I knew this would happen one day… Megumi-dono…"

Clenching her fists, Megumi turned her back to the shoji behind which Kenshin was standing, as always smothering his own suffering until he had helped the others. She knew that the only thing she could do for him now was to swallow her grief and open the shoji to face him with a serene face. _This_ was the first thing he needed. She had to be strong… She had to think that even Kaoru would be ashamed to act like she was doing just now… and that she would be so thanks to her and her often too harsh advice.

_Kami-sama..._

Kaoru.

Undertaking an inhuman effort to hide her feelings, Megumi walked towards the shoji and opened it with a trembling hand. Kenshin was there, serene as always but pale. So very pale…

Hell… why was **she** feeling so guilty? Wasn´t it his own damn fault? Why did he have to be so stubborn, to keep atoning until... until the very end? Why did he have to keep going even when he had a wife and a son caring for him? Why did he…?

 "Ken-san…" she started. She noticed with relief that her voice sounded even enough, almost professional, and this made her think that her many years as a doctor had somehow been of use after all. Even if it was just for that.__

 "Ken-san, I think you must know already, since you have been tending to that… disease for some months now, but I will remind you anyways. It's very contagious. And this means…"

A greater pain than what she had ever been able to spot in his features twisted them now before her very eyes. Naked, defenceless… _sincere... for once_, the thought crept inside her mind.

"I know, Megumi-dono", he whispered. "I know."

"But, why?" she asked, almost irrationally. "Why did you do this? Hadn´t you done enough?"

"You know why, Megumi-dono." Kenshin had his glance lost in some point behind her. 

For the first time, she began to feel angry.

"Your past mistakes were atoned for! Anyone who pretends otherwise is wrong. Just by all the people you saved when you fought Shishio Makoto, you…"

"I did not mean that", he interrupted her gently. Surprised, she stopped at mid sentence, and turned to face him again. "You know very well about the people who suffer. They are not there for you or for your peace of mind. _You _are there for them. And besides" he added as he saw she did not make the attempt of replying anything, trapped under the effects of a deep shock only similar to the shock she had felt when he told her for the first time that her crimes could be atoned for. "I'm still very far even from achieving my peace of mind."

As he walked away, slowly but surely, Megumi did not try to keep him from leaving. Once he had disappeared through the shoji of his bedroom, though, her legs seemed to respond again and she started to run, madly, towards nowhere.

*     *     *     *     *

_The place was dark and dirty, the dirtiest he had ever seen in his life. There was a horrible smell of putrid blood floating in the air, and the suffocation, provoked by the unnatural heat of so many unfortunate bodies, was so unbearable that it felt to him as if the room was going to explode. Now and then, an anguished cry pierced the shadows._

_"I´m sorry. I´m very sorry", he whispered. The woman with unnaturally swollen eyes, who did not care anymore about hiding the bleeding ravages of her body with the ragged blanket, gave another whine._

_"I´m going to die. Don´t leave me…"_

_"You are not going to die yet. The doctor said so! I´m coming back in two weeks…"_

_"One week", the woman insisted with a croaked voice. "I have one week left."_

_"But…"_

_"Only one!"_

Only one.

Kenshin hugged himself tightly, suddenly shaken by a wave of cold. Of course, he should have known. Those symptoms, the same but magnified in all their bloody repugnance, had been constantly under his eyes for the last months. Why hadn´t he even _seen_ that option, for Heaven´s sake? Could it be…?

_Could it really be…?_

Ashamed, the red haired man covered his face with his hands and sighed deeply. He could not help it. He couldn´t. Deep inside his mind, there had always been some vain and confident belief that he wasn´t like the others, fuelled by his sword prowesses and his constant defying of human limits, and, as he had discovered now, it was still there. He had always done things recklessly, thinking that the damages to his body and spirit would be healed later, and after he had paid for it once and had had to put his sword away, he still had not learned his lesson.

_"I´m going to die. Don´t leave me…"_

But… what lesson? That he shouldn´t have helped them? That he could not accept, even in the situation he was in now. They had needed him… He had brought hope to people….hadn´t he?

Slowly, Kenshin searched under his kimono, and laid his hand on the rash he had discovered the previous day. Maybe it was his imagination, but he could have sworn that it had grown in the meantime. He only had to close his eyes, and images of that woman with her body ravaged, and her skin so broken that blood covered all the blankets, plagued his mind. He would be like her soon if he did not find a more honourable way to leave, an object of horror, and of repugnance. This would be his end, such an unfair, an unworthy end for a warrior who had stayed alive through countless battles.

_Such an almost…supernaturally fitting end for a hitokiri with his soul full of the blood of countless victims who never had a real chance to defend themselves_, a cold voice said inside his head.

Enough said, he thought, his heart as heavy as lead. It would be his end. He had survived during all his life thinking that if he died he wouldn´t be able to take his punishment in this world, the world that had witnessed his crimes, and the same should apply to his present situation. To live his life with all the pain it contained, whatever happened, never giving up… hadn´t that been his oath?

_For them, we´re not human beings. We are buried here alive until we cannot breathe anymore._

It was cruel. So very cruel, he wasn´t going to deny that. But… he had to take it. He _had _to. He had heard several times that to rush to fight someone you are sure you can defeat had nothing brave about it. His path of atonement… he had known it would be difficult, but he never had doubted he would be able to carry it. He hadn´t been especially brave when he had decided he would use a reversed sword to protect the weak, had he? And many times he had said that he would live helping others until the time of his true punishment came, and that _then_ he would have to be ready to answer.

So it had come.

_The end._

Kenshin was sure, no, positive, that the happiness he had been allowed to have in this world for the good he had been able to do had died in that moment. He was sure too, he knew it now, that everything he had done until that moment had been nothing else than a preparation, a way to reach this. A chance, at last. Such a painful chance… but he never expected it to be easy, had he? If he was worthy, he would be forgiven. Somehow, he knew.

_It **had **to be._

"Kenshin?"

_Oh…no._ he thought, feeling his heart cringe at the intrusion. A voice, even such a sweet one, snapping him out of his musings had never caused so much pain to him like it did now. Kaoru was standing in the doorway, he could see her even without turning back, her face creased with worry, and her eyes like pools of concern. Her tone was tentative, as if somehow she was afraid of entering the room.

He had a knot in his throat.

_Eternal justice that comes from Heaven…what has been her crime?_,he asked silently, finding it in himself to sound rebellious for the first time. She had chosen to live with him, to be his support and to bear the weight of his sins. She had been strong, and she had been able to do it for so much time. But still… in his heart he knew it, she had been always an innocent young girl, and there was a point where even so much strength was bound to break under the weight he represented. Megumi had shown that to him, an hour ago, for all his admiration at her uncanny presence of mind and composure had not been enough to cloud his perception of how great her pain was. So… what about his Kaoru, so clumsy at hiding her feelings behind a mask, so free with her emotions, so passionate? Would he have to see….?

_Would he have to leave?_

Would he have to tell her?

_Would he bear it?_

Would she?

"Kenshin…." she tried again, now sounding somewhat more alarmed. "Kenshin… is something the matter?"

The red haired man inhaled deeply. Then, slowly, he turned back, a serene expression upon his features once more.

"No, Kaoru. Why do you ask?"

"Megumi-san has gone away, and we don´t know where she is", she blurted out. She looked even more worried than what he had been able to imagine, her hair and her kimono in a state of disarrangement, and her breasts heaved by an irregular and deep breathing. "And you have locked yourself here after you were with her. What happened?"

"I am sorry."

"What?"

"I am sorry if we caused you any trouble. If we worried you." Before Kaoru had the opportunity of saying anything else, Kenshin got up, walked towards the place where she stood, and wrapped her tense body in a strong embrace in which a deep underlying need was easily recognizable. 

"I am going to find her now" he promised, walking away.

Nothing stopped him as he stepped outside, neither a voice nor a touch. She was too puzzled to say a word, and he took advantage of that and used it to escape while he still could. He knew he was acting like a coward, but he could not help it at all.

He needed time.

*     *     *     *     *     *

"See you, Tsubame-san!"

"Thank you, Tsubame-san!"

"See you, children." With a smile, the young woman waved her little guests goodbye from the threshold of her house, though as soon as she had slid the shoji shut a weary expression took over in her features. What a tiring day. They had been there since early in the morning, running like mad, playing, shouting, asking her to join them, and eating more than a whole army... or than Yahiko. They were only two… but she felt as if they had been two hundreds.

_And tomorrow, I have to go to the Kamiya dojo and apologize to Megumi-san_, she reminded herself. She had never felt so embarrassed as when she had remembered about her arrival and it had been too late already. At least, she hoped that Yahiko had remembered to excuse her…

_Why, of course he has remembered. _Tsubame shook her head at the very idea, getting up again and going towards the kitchen to prepare something for dinner. _Why wouldn´t he?_

However, as she had just lighted the fire, something suddenly made her stop and drop all those thoughts to stand in alert. She would have sworn… she would have sworn she had heard a noise.

"Is… is someone out there?" she ventured, leaving the kitchen again. A knock reached her ears now distinctly.

_They have probably forgotten something_, she guessed quickly. "Coming!"

As soon as she had cleaned her hands, she rushed towards the shoji and slid it open again. Behind it, standing alone, there was Himura Kenshin.

"Ke… Kenshin-san!" She could not prevent her voice from sounding like a surprised shout, and that made her blush just two seconds afterwards. But it wasn´t her fault… he did not usually come to her house at night, alone, and when Yahiko was probably at the Kamiya dojo or elsewhere. And his state… she knew he was frail, but the man standing in front of her was positively exhausted. His face was pale, and there was a look in his eyes that made her terribly consternated, she did not know why.

 "Tsubame-dono." he greeted her with a hoarse voice and a weak smile. "May I come in?"

"Uh…eh..yes, of course!" Regaining her composure, she waved him in as she could. "But Yahiko hasn´t come back yet…"

"It´s fine", he answered. "I came to see you."

More surprised than ever, she nodded, and immediately began to fret to prepare him a place to sit, tea and some food. Through all the motions, she could not help feeling anxious, and ask herself what could have happened for him to be there. Had something happened to Yahiko? To Kaoru-san, maybe? Or to Megumi-san?

_You will know in time, Tsubame,_ she chided herself.

"It´s a honour to have you here, Kenshin-san." she said, when at last she was able to sit in front of him and take a sip of tea. A blush began to grow in her cheeks once more as she waited for him to start talking. "Uh… er… I…"

A sigh escaped the lips of the red haired man. Parsimoniously, he took the cup in his hands and drank a long gulp.

"Do not worry, Tsubame-dono. Everybody is all right at the dojo. I´m sorry if I have made you anxious", he started. She shook her head.

"Oh, no! You don´t have to apologise. It´s fine", she reassured him. "Did you come to tell me that Yahiko is going to arrive late?"

"Not exactly. I came here to ask you a question. Or, in other words… I need your help with something."

"A question? My help?" Now, she had to confess she was really curious. "But of course, Kenshin-san! I do not think there is anything in this world in with someone such as myself can help someone such as you, but... if there is…"

"There is, Tsubame-dono." Surprised, she lifted her glance, and met a pair of violet eyes that hid a lot of sadness. The contrast with the warm smile in his lips was so shocking…

_What was happening to him?_

"You were the only one who was able to call me back to life when I was dying in Rakuninmura. In those terrible days… I do not know what could have happened if it hadn´t been for you."

"Uh? Oh… no… not at all!" In her deep embarrassment, Tsubame nearly buried her head under the table. "I… I didn´t do anything. I… I only needed your help."

"You don´t value yourself enough." he chided her gently. He had another sip of tea, and then stayed still, as if he was pondering the words he was going to say next. "I… Tsubame-dono, do you remember when I told all of you the story of my past for the first time?"

This sudden opening of the topic left the girl speechless.

"Your… past?"

Tsubame closed her eyes, allowing sinister memories to crowd her mind for a while. Those horrible days. She wasn´t even able to remember them without cringing, a cold grip seizing her heart. Until then, she had been a normal girl. Some nasty things had happened to her, like that affair with Nagaoka Mikio, but still… she had not been prepared, like the rest of those who were there with her had been. She had not been prepared to be trapped in the middle of a bloody quest for revenge, carried by a man who had lost his sister to the hands of… that man who was like Yahiko´s father in many ways. To the hands of his own brother-in-law. Of the most famous assassin of the Bakumatsu… _the hitokiri Battousai._  She had not been prepared to see their group shattered, their happiness lost, to be told that Kaoru was no more… and Kenshin, he had been lost in despair for weeks, sitting in that horrible place until he nearly became an empty shell. He had suffered so much back then…

_And…now?_

With a shock, Tsubame realized that Kenshin´s expression right now, though not nearly as hollow, had something in common with the face of that empty shell, so many years ago.

"I… remember it." she managed to say, looking up. "I really do."__

"I think I am disturbing you." Before she could react, Kenshin got up. There was guilt written over his face, and Tsubame realised she must have shown something to his watchful eyes of what she was feeling. "I am sorry, Tsubame-dono. It was nothing of importance… forgive me."

"Wait!" Surprised at her own boldness, Tsubame got up as well. "Don´t go!"

"I…"

Pity crept inside her heart as he turned back, and she noticed how he was looking at her in indecision. Since he had known him, he had always closed his soul hermetically to everyone. He had never allowed anyone to share his pain or his worry, always keeping everything to himself and thoroughly discouraging the rest of the world with a blank stare or an exasperating smile. He had always been too stubborn, too strong, too concerned about the others to yield. And now… now he could not even hide the need in his eyes, the hope that she would succeed in being bold for once and stop him.

"I said I was going to help you. Please, let me…What were you going to ask me?"

"All right." Sighing –in relief, as she thought to herself-,  he sat down again, and clutched his cup as if it was the only thing that prevented him to be swept away by an invisible force. "I… I know you all were thinking that I loved Kaoru and that she loved me even back then. Weren´t you?"

"Uh…? Yes", she nodded, embarrassed. "She really loved you. I´m… very happy that you married."

"And didn´t you ever think, while I was telling you about my past with Tomoe and you saw Kaoru´s expression, that she did not deserve to have her heart broken by that tale?"

"What?" _Oh, shocked again_, the poor girl thought to herself. _I must be giving such a horrible impression…_

Had she…?__

"I do not think… I mean, I did not think that." she blurted out quickly, before he had time to feel discouraged again. "Let me explain", she added immediately afterwards, leaning back and willing herself to act like a mature woman who thought carefully all her answers before uttering them. She could not forget that it would be very easy to hurt Kenshin´s feelings while talking about that particular subject.. and, right now, she did not believe he was in shape to stand that. "I saw she was…well, it was evident she wasn´t having a good time. I felt sorry for her, yes. But, at the same time… at the same time, I felt happy for her, too."

"Happy?" Kenshin stared at her in shock. "Why that?"

"When you left for Kyoto, she was devastated", she explained shyly, already resigned to tell him about her long-hidden true feelings. "Tae-san and me, we had thought you were going to stay with her forever, marry her… well, you know what I mean. But you left. Afterwards, Yahiko and Kaoru-san went to find you and brought you back. I thought that now you would never leave her again… but, in fact, nothing had changed." Pausing in her speech, Tsubame blushed. "Umm… I do not know if you understand a word of what I´m saying. My fault, I don´t know how to express myself!"

"Please, continue", Kenshin urged her softly. __

"Uh…all right. When all that…horror happened, you decided to tell everything to Kaoru and to us at last. I was frightened and sad when I heard your tale, and, as I told you, I pitied Kaoru. But at the same time, I felt glad for her, because somehow, after you had shared this with her, I knew that she was too important to you, and that you would never leave her again. That day…I…" She needed a long gulp to be able to say this. Now, she was positive she hadn´t felt so awkward and ashamed in her whole life, maybe not even excepting the day when Yahiko asked for her hand. "I knew you would marry her, and share with her everything, and, even if this was going to be painful, it was what she wanted. She wanted to help you, more than anything else. She deserved a chance to let you know how much she loved you, and how far she was willing to go for your sake. And I also was happy for you, because you deserved someone who would help you with your problems. I am very glad… that I was right."

Flustered after having talked so much, Tsubame lifted her glance and spied Kenshin´s features anxiously. He seemed to her far gone, at first, though, bit by bit, he seemed to regain his usual expression.

"Hmm...I see. Thank you, Tsubame-dono." This time, he got up with more determination. "You have really helped me. I told you, you underestimated yourself, and I still think so. You have been of a great help that time, when you woke me up, and also now."

"But… I… I didn´t wake you up!" she protested again, getting up as well and following him towards the door. "It was just you. You are like that… you´re like dead if you cannot help anybody, but when somebody needs you, whatever happens to you, you come back to life. I… I just needed you that time."

"What?"

"Uh?" Astounded at the sudden gleam in his eyes, Tsubame gave a jump. "What do you mean?"

"What have you said?" Kenshin repeated in a slower tone.

"I´m… I´m  sorry." she muttered, lowering her head. "I did not mean anything..."

"Tsubame" As if he had just realized the strange image he was giving, Kenshin changed his voice again and smiled in reassurance. "There´s nothing you should be sorry for. I just want you to repeat the words you have just said, because I think they are more valuable than anything else I have heard today. Will you do it for me, please?"

"Ye… yes, of course. I will." she nodded, more puzzled than ever. "I said that, whatever happens to you, you always get up if there is someone who needs your help. You were suffering back then, but you still got up because you knew that Yahiko was in danger. I just happened to be the one who told you. That was what you wanted… me to repeat?"

"Yes. That was it. Tsubame-dono." As he got at last to the door, Kenshin suddenly did what she had expected him to do least. He knelt formally in front of her, suppressing a gasp of pain as his knees touched the floor. 

"W… what? Oh, please!" she whined. "Get up, Kenshin-san, please, I beg of you. You… shouldn´t…."

"You have listened to me. You have understood me and you have given me a help that I sorely needed. If there is something, anything, that I can do for you, Tsubame-dono… believe me, I will."

"Kenshin-san…" Several instants passed away, before Tsubame was able at last to swallow the knot that had formed in her throat and form a coherent phrase. Her eyes, however, were far more eloquent than her mouth.

"I do not need anything. But please, whatever happens to you… get well. I only want you to be happy."

Moments later, when he had bowed his thanks again and closed the shoji behind him, the young woman sat down with a worried expression. She hadn´t felt it appropriate to ask, at least not while he had that pitiful look, but…

_What can be the matter with him? _

It had been the first time that she knew about in which he had asked someone´s help instead of keeping his problems to himself. That he had wanted to remember… no, even worse, that he had wanted _her _to remember. And that look…

_Maybe Yahiko will know,_ she concluded, getting up and heading –this time for good- towards the kitchen.

*     *     *     *     *

_Whatever happens to you, if someone needs your help you always come back to life. Such hopeful words.  So comforting…And yes, so true. And yet…_

It was already getting late when Kenshin arrived home at last. His mind was busy with the words he had heard from Tsubame during his visit to her, pondering them and making them dance in circles inside his head. He had to tell Kaoru. Now he had the strength to do it, though he still did not know how to do it. It would surely hurt her immensely… but, after all, hadn´t it also hurt immensely when he had told her about Tomoe? And still, as Tsubame´s words had implied to him, she had endured that hurt gladly because for the first time she was allowing her to decide for herself. To choose. To have the opportunity of reaching for him and making him know that, even knowing all this, she would still be at his side. Foolish little girl, he thought with a sigh. If she only hadn´t been so stubborn…

_If she hadn´t been so stubborn you would never have been happy. You would never have decided that there is someone who really cared about you and would be sad if you died, after all you had done…_

So, what? Now, it would be the same. He could not think he had the right to choose for her even if he only meant to cause her less pain. After all, how many people had surprised him showing that their ideas about happiness and his did not coincide at all? As he closed his eyes for a moment, he saw Tomoe´s smile as she expired in his arms, that smile that had fuelled his self-loathing to the point of madness. He saw Komagata Yumi, the oiran who had loved Shishio Makoto, smiling as she had expired in the arms of her lover while he was choking in rage in front of them, unable to understand. He saw Misao falling down the precipice…

He had to tell her. It was his duty. He had to do it. And then, Kenji….

_But... when did **he **choose anything?_

Feeling at last the long-delayed tear trickling down his cheek, Kenshin sat down at the courtyard of the dojo. He could hear voices of people, distant laughs, and the sound of footsteps, but he wasn´t able even to pay them heed. For he didn´t know how much time, he just stayed there in his misery, shaking listlessly, until at last someone came next to him and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Kenshin."

"Hmmm…?"

"Kenshin!"

"Uh?" He opened his eyes unwillingly, hoping the voice would go away, together with the heavy touch…but they didn´t.

"I found Megumi." It was Yahiko. "Kaoru and Kenji went to search for her too, but they haven´t returned yet. They will be here soon."

"Yahiko..."Ashamed, Kenshin refused to lift his head. The young man would notice then that he had been crying, and he couldn´t allow this. "Get inside. I will follow you."

"Kenshin." The pressure of the hand on his shoulder became heavier and more insistent. For the first time, Kenshin noticed an oddity in Yahiko´s tone, as if his voice was… trembling?

"What do you want?" he asked, now concerned, and forgetting about the remains of his tears in order to look at him in the eye. "Yahiko…"

There was an expression in his face that he had never seen there. It looked sad, subdued, lost… and, at the same time, desperately trying to look strong. And in that moment, in that precise moment… Kenshin knew.

_Always trying to prove yourself that you can do it. Since the very first time we met…_he thought, swollen by some kind of painful pride.

"Kenshin", Yahiko repeated. "I´m going to drink somewhere this night. Want to come with me?"

"Kaoru-dono and Tsubame-dono will be worried", Kenshin objected, shaking his head.

"Megumi knows, and she will tell Kaoru when she arrives", the samurai answered. "As for Tsubame, we will stop on our way and I will tell her. Come on, Kenshin. We won´t be home too late, I promise."

Something in the way in which he pulled Kenshin up by his arm told the older man that it was useless to argue. Shaking his head in resignation, maybe somehow in relief, he got up quietly, and allowed himself to be carried away.

(to be continued)


	4. Atonement

To Look Into Her Eyes 

**Chapter Four: Atonement**

The body lying next to her moved again, brusquely, almost despairingly, and clutched the blanket with one hand. Startled out of her uneasy sleep by that move, she gave a whimper, and immediately embraced him with all her strength, burying his head in the warmth of her frame.

"Tsubame…"

"Shhh… Try to sleep, my love",  she muttered, beginning to feel tears in her eyes once again. He did not drop his tense position in a moment, but, as she waited, she noticed that he relaxed somewhat.

It was the second time in one night. Not too long after she had been paid the visit of the most despairing Himura Kenshin she had ever seen, Yahiko had come to her in the same state. It was too much for her, to see the two strongest men she had ever met with that forlorn look in their eyes, silently begging for the comfort that such an insignificant young woman could give to them. Too much, to give that comfort to them while feeling like crying herself…

_To know that Kenshin was going to die… Inevitably…_

"I know what you… what you feel…" she whispered in his ear. She tried to make her voice sound even, but she could not prevent it from coming out as a broken sob. As he noticed it, he turned back and embraced her in turn, his face pale but tearless.

_How much would it hurt to be him?_ Tsubame wondered, not for the first time. Kenshin and Kaoru had always been her friends, but for Yahiko they had been _everything_ since he had met them at that Tokyo bridge. To know that his surrogate father, his example to follow, his companion, his friend, was going to be taken away from this world soon by a dreadful disease that took everything, dignity included, away from its victim, and, that same day, to have to devise a scheme so that the person who was closest to him, the woman who taught him everything he knew and who had taken the place of his older sister, selflessly caring for him for so many years, could know that her husband was going to die… she did not think there ever could be anything more painful in the world. And yet, he still seemed to think he could not allow himself to cry, to break that tension and obtain some kind of relief from his tears.

"Try to sleep now, please", she pleaded once more, wiping her cheek with her left hand. "Tomorrow… tomorrow will be a new day." 

"You are right. This will be best", he answered. His body changed position once more, and she found herself holding him as before. For a long time, the room was silent again, even if both of them knew very well that the other was awake.

"But why?" she still could hear hours later, an accusing, desperate voice in the middle of the darkness. "Why?"

*     *     *     *     *

_"It´s...It´s you?"_

_Kenshin knelt at the side of the futon. He preferred to focus his gaze on the bleeding and reeking bandages than into the haunting eyes of the ill woman, and yet, for a moment, he had to look into them to give the best answer to her question. As she stretched her arms to attract him towards her, he took them away with care and held them with just one of his hands._

_"Don´t worry, I haven´t gone anywhere", he said in a soothing voice. "But the doctor had to examine you, and I was taking care of the other patients..."_

_"Don´t let him come near me again."  Her voice was so intent, there was so much vehemence and maybe…fear in them, that Kenshin could not help but wonder what had exactly happened and how much of it had been just in her wild and tormented imagination. "Please, don´t… Don´t let him..."_

_"Don´t worry, he is gone now. I promise. Lie down, relax, think about something else… For example…",  he added quickly, as his brain worked, "…why don´t you tell me something about you?"_

_"Something…about me…?"_

_"Yes." In that moment, a cry reached his ears, and he winced. "In which city were you born?"_

_"Edo."_

_"Edo?" Surprised, he lifted his eyes. "You mean Tokyo?"_

_"No. Edo", she insisted, with eyes that defied him to name the city otherwise. "My beloved died in Kyoto… in the Bakumatsu…"_

_Suddenly, as he was still processing the words she had just uttered, a change took place before his very eyes. The dried blood of her wounds seemed to freshen again, and it was spilled all over her body and the blanket. Her skin turned whiter, softer, and her hair was dark as the night. She lifted her eyes to search for his, but he turned his head abruptly, unable for some reason to meet their gaze._

The gaze that haunted his every nightmare.

_"Forgive me, my husband... Forgive me…"_

_"Do you know what´s the worst thing about this disease?" a croaked voice interrupted the weak plea. "That you cannot defend yourself."_

_Then, holding a dagger in her hand, and while he did  nothing but stare at what she was doing, heedless of the pain, she drew a line in his skin with it. However, it wasn´t in his cheek this time, as on that long-past snowy day… it went  across his whole body, a long, deep, hideous rash._

*     *     *     *     *

"Tomoe!"

Kenshin opened his eyes wide, while his mouth screamed that name in horror… and found himself kicking his blanket away, sitting in bewilderment on top of his futon in his bedroom. In front of him, there was a woman, staring at him with those eyes…

"Ken… shin?"

Returning little by little to the reality that surrounded him, he realized with a sigh that the woman was no other than Kaoru. She looked haggard and worn, as if she had been awake all night,, dark circles under her eyes, and her gaze had a pained expression that worried him immediately.

What could have happened to her? 

"Kaoru-dono…" he started. "What…?"

_Oh…all right,_ he chided himself, shutting his mouth as soon as he had opened it and feeling how his cheeks burned in shame. If he recalled correctly, last night he had disappeared all afternoon, then got away at night too, drunk a little more than what he should have, probably worried her to death and then, on top of all this, he had just cried the name of his first wife in a nightmare. She should be a true spirit of Heaven if she hadn´t beaten him senseless and thrown him out of the house yet, but he supposed this all would come in a matter of seconds. 

"Kaoru-dono..." he started, trying to get up from the futon in the haste to apologize. Maybe, with a bit of luck, this would allow him to keep some bones intact... "I am very, very sorry for…" __

However, his words soon died in his mouth in astonishment, as he saw her getting up quickly and her arms pushed him back towards the bed. Before he even could have the chance to protest, she knelt at his side and carefully lifted the blanket up to his waist again, smoothing the wrinkles with her hand.

"Ka…Kaoru?" he asked, puzzled. But instead of answering him, or even looking at him, she turned away and went to fetch something… a food tray as he could see.

"Stay here, please. Don´t do anything that could… tire you", she pleaded, a strange new brilliant look in her eyes as she turned again to give it to him. "See… I made breakfast."

"But…", Kenshin tried to protest. By instinct of survival, he never said a single word whenever something regarding her cooking entered the picture, for he knew that she was far too susceptible with that issue… but now, she didn´t even seem to care. In fact, she looked scarily as if she was beyond the point of caring for anything of the sort.

"I will be giving kendo lessons at the dojo all morning, but Megumi has promised she is going to take care of the house and make lunch while I am away" Kaoru got up and headed towards the entrance. "So, please, just..._rest_." 

In spite of all her obvious efforts, the last words came out as a strangled sob, and Kenshin felt his heart twist inside his chest. Just in a moment, he did not even know how, he was out of the bed, heedless of sores, rashes or nightmares, and pulling Kaoru into an embrace... the second in two days, as he thought belatedly to himself. And the woman did not have the strength to flee it, not even to put a stop to her sobbing for minutes.

"Kaoru…", he whispered, cradling her and trying to keep the disturbing images of his nightmare away from his mind. He felt nausea... the aftermath of the sake, no doubt.

_But…how…?_

"Don´t worry about me. I´m fine." The lie left his lips heavily, with terrible difficulty. "I can take perfect care of everything, trust me in that."

"I…"All of a sudden looking ashamed, Kaoru got away and wiped her eyes. "I have to go. I´m late."

Somehow, Kenshin wasn´t able to try to stop her when she turned back and got out of their room. He stayed there frozen in place for a long time, staring at the shoji through which she had just disappeared, and when at last he could make a move, it was to sigh deeply and walk inside again.

_How could she have known?_

*     *     *     *     *

"Good morning, Ken-san!"

Kenshin stopped at the kitchen´s entrance for a moment, closing his eyes and putting a hand to his poor head. The sunrays were too bright, and Megumi´s greeting too cheerful, for what it was able to handle on that particular morning.

"Uh... good morning, Megumi-dono", he muttered. His gaze, at last more or less used to the light, wandered over the kitchen pots and piles of rice and vegetables, to reach at last the place where the beautiful lady was lifting her head from her chopping with a smile.

"You don´t... you don´t have to do this", he added, flustered. "It´s my job, and you´re a guest."

"Really? Well, then it´s still better." Before he even had the opportunity to blink, he found himself with a knife in his hands. "Chop those vegetables over there while I wash the rice. Oh, a capable, smart and skilled person helping me at last!" Megumi gave an exaggerated sigh as she got up, as if repressing a shudder. "_She _got inside here to make breakfast."__

"Megumi-dono…" As he had been told, Kenshin sat automatically in front of the vegetables, and assumed his task. He was in no mood for pleasantries that morning, though… be it because of the sake, or the nightmare, or the recent memories of Kaoru crying, he was not sure.

"Yes, Ken-san?" The doctor dropped her attitude as well, discarding it as if it had been a not particularly fitting kimono. "Is there anything you want to ask me?"

"How did she know?"

"So direct", she sighed. "You´re always like that. Well, I told her."

"While I was with Yahiko", he guessed.

"Yes."

"Why?"

Instead of answering, Takani Megumi put her hands away from the water, and dried them carefully. In a deliberately slow motion, she turned to face him… and he could check that her matter-of-fact attitude had been discarded as well now, as one more kimono that did not fit her at the moment.

"Because I wanted to make it easy for you", she blurted out, and then began to bite her lower lip in what Kenshin recognized as an unequivocal mark of distress. "You always have to bear the weight of the whole world on your shoulders, as if there was nobody else around trying to help you and being rejected once, twice, thrice. You seem greedy of your pain… but I couldn´t bear it any longer, not this time. You cannot lead the life you need to lead now if you´re wrapped in your gloom and unable to let the others care about you, so I decided they needed to know urgently… and you may be the patient, but _I_ am the doctor!"

For a while, and after that outburst, nobody added a single word, each one of them staring at the other. Her stare was defiant, his was unreadable… until, at last, he shook his head and turned back to his vegetables.

"Does the word "them" mean that Kenji knows too?" he asked, in a muffled tone. Megumi shook her head affirmatively.

"And... where is he?"

"I don´t know."

"What?" Suddenly worried again, he lifted his face. "Isn´t he at home?"

"He left while Kaoru was still busy _understanding _the news… But do not worry, Ken-san, he´ll probably come back at some moment or another."

"I see." Kenshin closed his eyes, goose bumps forming in his skin at the mere thought of having to face him when this happened. As Megumi noticed this, she felt her heart swell with pity. "Thank you, Megumi-dono. I appreciate your gesture… and I´m sorry if I was rude to you before."

"Oh, don´t worry. This is something that comes with hangovers." she waved it off with a painful smile. "Ask the Rooster-Head when he comes back from Mongolia… he´ll confirm it gladly."

_Oh, yes_, Kenshin remembered. _Sanosuke_… For a moment, he wondered what his long-lost best friend would do if he knew to which condition he had been reduced to… though, almost at the same moment, he was already berating himself for thinking about the absent when there was such a dreadful mess he had to solve with those who were present. __

The truth was, that he still did not know very well what he would say.

"Ken-san…"

"Hm?" Snapping away from his musings, he turned towards Megumi again. "Did you say anything, Megumi-dono?"

"I…well…" The woman´s dark hair fell like a cascade over her shoulders, as the cloth she was using to keep it tied up was suddenly loosened. She didn´t even pay attention to it, though, as she was busy looking intently at Kenshin. "I am sorry for what I said yesterday. I… I was angry at myself, and I did not mean it."

At this, Kenshin had to smile in spite of himself. This was certainly a sensitive spot, one of the very few sensitive spots Megumi had, and he assumed she had been thinking about how to put it before she decided to get done with it and put it anyway. She was too conscientious… like he was himself.

"I know, Megumi-dono. Since the very first time we met, I know very well how much your work and your patients mean to you. I would never doubt it for a single moment."

Her face looked relieved enough at those words, and, as he thought, glowing with some kind of true warmth since they met for the first time the day before. Oh… had it only been a day?

"Especially one of them." she winked, putting her hair back into its place.

*     *     *     *     *

"Well, let´s see…" The doctor bowed her head to inspect the rash carefully. "Hmmm… Just as I thought."

"Which is…?"

"I cannot cure this illness. But I will do what I can to make it easier for you, and your life happier and… longer." Her tone faltered for a fraction of a second. "I would offer to live in Tokyo again for some years, but I know perfectly what you would answer. And, anyway…" She shook her head, receiving the confirmation of her previous words through Kenshin´s eyes. "I consider you definitely capable of understanding my instructions. The only one in this house."

"If it´s in my hand to follow that advice, I will", he assured her, though deep inside he knew that, being who he was, this wasn´t _that _much of a reassurance. "It´s a promise." 

"Well…"she started, tentatively. "For example, I assume you aren´t going to wander again…are you?"

_Was he?_

Kenshin put his kimono back in place, and crawled back into his normal sitting position. Good question, indeed. The truth was that this issue hadn´t come to his mind when he had been worried about everything else. Surely his friends and his family would expect him to stay at home, calmly living what time he had left…

_…Waiting for his death, in peace…_

No, he sighed. This wasn´t a simple issue either. If he stayed, he would not be in peace, to say the least… on the contrary, he would be tortured by the thought that he had given up before it was over, when he knew there were still so many people suffering elsewhere, and the nightmares would never stop. He would grow bitter, then useless, and then helpless… and he would make the lives of his family and friends difficult to bear. Oh, of course they wouldn´t complain… but, deep inside, he knew perfectly they would feel like that. And, on the other hand, if he went away… would he be able to do much? When would he start to be a source of nuisance instead of a source of help? And... would he be able to leave Kaoru and Kenji now that he knew that his months of life were carefully counted?

_Surely all this must have an answer, a meaning. Everything has a meaning! You only have to search for it…_

"Ken-san?"

"Uh…Sorry, Megumi-dono. I… I was thinking about what you had said. In fact…" He inhaled air deeply, and grasped the green fabric of his kimono with both hands, "I do not know the answer to that still. It´s not too easy and I may need some time to figure it out."

"Kami-sama", Megumi muttered in despair, getting up and heading towards the kitchen. 

*     *     *     *     *

In spite of the angry protests of the sores in his hands, Kenshin spent the rest of the morning doing laundry in the yard. He needed to be alone, but he also needed something to do or his hard thinking would irremediably turn into brooding, as he already knew very well from past experiences. Even with the sound of shouts, strikes and yells coming from the dojo, and the occasional rustle of Megumi´s kimono as she checked on him from the shoji, he was oblivious of everything else.

_Everything must have an answer…_

Maybe people would think he was giving himself too much importance, to believe that every single thing Fate had in store to him had a trascendental meaning. They would tell him that he had been infected because he was careless, end of the story, and that now he had to resign like everybody else. And still… he had always believed that, not only this, but absolutely everything in the world, had some significance, a significance that sometimes was so hard to find that most people gave up in the way. He had been careless, true, he had got infected, true…but, did it have to be _exactly_ like that? __

_"No. Edo. My beloved died in Kyoto…in the Bakumatsu…"_

_"Forgive me, my husband...Forgive me…"_

_"Do you know what´s the worst thing about this disease? That you cannot defend yourself."_

Carefully, Kenshin touched the cross-shaped scar of his left cheek with a wet finger, and leaned back. Atonement… the dream was clear. He had never allowed the hands of others to be stained as his had been, but if it was nobody´s revenge, nobody´s crime or retribution, just Heaven itself in the name of every other, he should accept it. He had known it would come, anyway, one day or the other, and tried to live worthily until then and never give up. Now, however, giving up was only fair. 

_No one should resist Tenchuu._

Oh, and _what_ an exquisite irony…

And, still, even if this was clear to him, Kenshin did not think he could be able to say the same about everything else. He had always thought, he had preached, that no atonement in this world was truly atonement if it consisted just in suffering, without paying back. Now, this illness made it impossible to continue paying back… didn´t it? Sooner or later, now or in a year, he would have to leave the people he had helped alone.

_"Please…promise you will come back. Please…don´t leave me alone. I´m going to die…"_

Oblivious to the effect he was causing, Kenshin squeezed the yukata he was washing with too much strength, and spilled part of the water on the ground. His hand hurt, and he had to suppress a gasp, but he did not weaken his grip. Was the need that he suffered more important than all those people? Or… was he maybe just being vain and thinking he was needed, while in fact he wasn´t?

_Surely I was needed before, and that´s why I was spared. But those days are gone, now I´m a pitiful old wreck, and what can I do anymore?_

Wasn´t it clear?

_..Kenshin…_

_You are late. Again._

_She cried all night._

_Please... don´t leave me alone._

No! He put the garment aside, and searched for another in the basket. It was not clear. At least not to him. 

_You are like that. You´re like dead if you cannot help anybody, but when somebody needs you, whatever happens to you, you come back to life._

Surprised at the sudden interference and almost exprecting to see someone standing in front of him, Kenshin froze in place and looked up. Those words… he hadn´t summoned them to his mind voluntarily, like all the others. They were nothing more than a comforting remembrance of the utopia, the utopia he had once represented or tried to represent, in those times when he still was able to do miracles. Now, however….

_Now, however…_

_...what?_

_Had he really changed, or was it just his body?_

Kenshin´s sudden jump caused Megumi, who had just appeared through the shoji, to think something bad had happened to him. Hastily, she ran towards him, ready to hold him if he was going to fall… but, to her astonishment, he only turned back and gave her a look that contained not only the new pain, but also his old determination. In that moment, she knew what it meant.

In that moment, she surrendered.

*     *     *     *     *

When the gates of the dojo opened at last, Kenshin and Megumi had the table already set. Curiously, they watched the boys run across the yard, shouting, laughing and pushing each other, until, behind them, they could spot Kaoru, accompanied by her two assistant masters, Myoujin Yahiko and Tsukayama Yutaro.

"Hey, Kenshin, Megumi!" Yahiko greeted them. As Kenshin could notice just by looking at him, he hadn´t spent a very good night either.

"Good morning, Himura-san, Takani-san." Yutaro followed his example, and then gave an exaggerated weary sigh. "Pheew, what a horrible day... I don´t know what´s up with them, but I was the only one of that group of idiots who managed to get the things right in all the damn morning. Was it something she cooked?"

"Yutaro-kun, please…" Kaoru protested weakly. This lack of response caused a mild shock in the blond samurai, who immediately threw Yahiko a surreptitious glance as if to ask him what the heck was the matter with the master of the Kamiya Kasshin dojo that morning. But Yahiko just shrugged his shoulders, and made him a gesture which meant that he would tell him later.

"Okay. I´m leaving now, Kaoru. If you need something from me, I plan to be at home for the rest of the day. Oh, Yutaro, and if you behave yourself you can come with me", he said. Both bowed and left, the sounds of flying Japanese and German insults still hearable after they had crossed the gate.

"You look very tired, Kaoru-dono", Kenshin observed. "Come on, sit down and eat something of this delicious food we have made."

"Fine… uh… did you say _we_?" Her husband had just said the only thing that could upset her at that moment, and Kaoru reacted immediately by putting her hands on her hips and advancing towards him. "I told you to rest! And you, Megumi-san, after I left him in your care… how could you allow…?"

"Because he is not dead, yet." 

Shocked, the younger woman shut her mouth, then opened it, and closed it again. A livid colour crept over her face, and for a moment Kenshin felt true fear of her reaction. Megumi, meanwhile, stayed impavidly seated on the table , regarding her opponent with a stern expression.

"What…have you said?" Kaoru managed to mutter at last.

"I am a doctor. I care for him, too", Megumi said. "So I would appreciate it immensely if you trusted my judgement." Then, as if she hadn´t said anything, her expression softened, and she pointed towards one of the two empty places at the table. "Now, sit down, you silly girl, and eat. As you look now, it wouldn´t be a surprise if you got ill as well."

"Where is Kenji?" Kaoru asked, regarding the food with something akin to repugnance, and turning towards Kenshin. Her husband realized that she had that familiar look that showed she was unable to decide whether she wanted to kill Megumi or ask her for forgiveness… something very usual in the relationship between the two women.

"He hasn´t returned yet, Kaoru-dono", he said. "But Megumi-dono is right in that, you should cease worrying and eat. He's probably with Sano´s brother, or maybe even in Yahiko´s house. I´m sure he´ll be back soon, when his mind is clearer."

"O... okay." she sighed, in defeat at last. "Wait here, I´ll go and change in a minute."

*     *     *     *     *

Kenji, however, did not appear at any point of the meal. This did not only worry Kaoru, even if she was the one who showed it the most, and even if what pained Kenshin about their son´s prolonged absence was probably something different. He did not fear for his safety, since his skills were indeed more than proficient, but the state of his soul was making him very anxious.

His poor son… suffering that much because of him. He had come to terms with nearly everything now, but this still hurt. How could this be fair, to have him face this after they had almost reached an understanding at last? How could anyone want that he was sunk in despair again after seeing some rays of light?

_You probably killed hundreds of fathers in the Bakumatsu, in those glorious times when you believed yourself to be Tenchuu._ The same cold voice that was always ready to snap into his mind and punish him whenever he let himself wallow in self-pity lost no time in making itself heard. _Three with a single strike. You monster._

"Kenshin… do you think Kenji will come back today?"

"Uh?…" Kenshin opened his eyes, to meet her wife´s worried expression and Megumi´s unreadable one. "Of course, Kaoru-dono. Just give him some time. And now… why don´t we clear the table and go inside?"

"You both look pitiful", Megumi snorted fondly. "Get inside and have a rest together. I will take care of everything."

*     *     *     *     *

Once they were both in their bedroom, though, it became apparent for him that Kaoru had understood their temporary retirement as something very different than an opportunity of having a rest. As soon as she slid the shoji shut, her pained, inquiring eyes were set on him.

"Kenshin…" she began.

He sighed.

"I'm sorry for not telling you yesterday. I promise I was intending to do it as soon as I had come to terms with it myself… otherwise, I might have given you a wrong impression."

"A wrong… impression?" she asked, mystified.

"Yes, Kaoru-dono." With moves that, to say the least, were not as fluent as they had been in the past, Kenshin knelt on the futon and pointed at a space in front of him with his hand. This was going to be… really difficult to explain. "Come over here, please."

As Kaoru did what she was told, he stayed looking at her for some minutes, as if gathering his wits and his ideas. Finally, he stretched a hand to hold hers, and guided it towards the cross-shaped scar in his left cheek.

"Do you feel it, Kaoru-dono?"

"Feel?" If it was possible, she was still more puzzled. "Feel what?"

"You know that this scar, for many years, has been here reminding me of my most hideous crimes and my oath of atonement. Its presence meant that whatever I had tried to do hadn´t still outweighed my sins, that I still was unworthy of being forgiven. It used to be very painful at first… until, after I met you, it finally started to fade somewhat. It was a gradual process, through the years… but, sometimes, at certain special circumstances, I could feel it."

"Oh…", she nodded, in quiet awe. It was not always that Kenshin told her such things about himself… but, whenever he did, she felt as if she had conquered something. 

_Only that, now…_

"And?" she asked quickly, to smother the growing need to shout, cry or do something dreadfully childish again.

"I never had the slightest hope that it would wholly disappear before I died, even after my death", Kenshin stated then. To her utmost astonishment, his violet eyes gleamed with a soft glow as he pressed her hand against his cheek, and she almost could feel, effectively, the presence of a strange force covering it. "Until now."

(to be continued)

Well, since I´ve seen that this is more or less customary in this fandom, I´ve thought that I might as well write reviewer responses. So, here you are. (blushes) It´s my first time…

**Finch: **If you feel out of your depths in any moment, don´t worry, just ask. I like to answer questions (as you no doubt know already ^_^). Anyway, I´m very glad that you´re enjoying this and understanding it up to this point, and (what is the same)when you say that what I write speaks for itself, it makes me very happy.

**EnjeruJoshin: **It´s funny but, as I usually correct what I write hundreds and hundreds of times after I write it, I finish by forgetting it´s supposed to be sad. ^_^. As for finishing it, the end is very near, so don´t worry. Thank you for all your reviews!

**Anaii: **Thank you… Here is the next update, but, anyway, for your knowledge, I usually update every Monday.

**Miss Behavin: **


	5. The Answer

Disclaimer: The characters belong to Watsuki Nobuhiro.

This chapter was beta-ed by Margit Ritzka.

To Look Into Her Eyes 

**Chapter Five: The Answer**

Kaoru sat still on the table, her eyes closed in an attempt to tell a different noise apart from the whisper of the wind and the curtains of rain falling down to the earth. Night had fallen long ago without there being the slightest trace of Kenji yet, and she was already beyond being convinced of his welfare.

"Kaoru-dono…"

Oh, damn him and his cold blood. How could he be just sitting there?

"I´ve had enough!" She stood up abruptly, and clenched her fist. "I´m going to find him now."

"I think you shouldn´t."

"What?" Stopped in her way towards the exit , Kaoru shot her seated husband a glare. "How can you say that? Aren´t you worried about him, or what?"

Kenshin gave a deep sigh.

"Yes, I am. But _one_ of the people I love is enough to be worried about."

This statement provoked a brief but intense struggle inside Kaoru. On the one hand, she felt more than ever the over-consuming need to ignore his words, to leave and get her son wherever he was… while, on the other, she felt terribly guilty of leaving Kenshin like that. She knew very well how he had always been with those things. If by chance something happened to her, the thought that he was useless and unable to protect her would kill him, of that she was sure. 

Why did certain men have to be _so_ complicated?

"Okay!" Kicking her sandal away, and making it pass whistling at a hair´s breadth from Kenshin´s right ear –she had to take care of him now, after all- , the woman sat down again. "Old age has made you still worse with that famous issue, hasn´t it?"

"Oro?"

"Never mind", she sighed. "Anyway…can you tell me what we are going to do now, with my son _still _out there?"

Kenshin sighed, too, and looked at her again, trying to think for the thousandth time what to say to calm her fears. Nearly involuntarily, his eyes sought hers, and he could see all that grief in them, all that disproportioned distress over a matter of simple worry. The truth was there, engraved in them… a painful accusation tearing his insides.

_She was venting. _

"Don´t worry" he said getting up, his determination fully made. "I will find him."

These words startled Kaoru to the point of giving a jump. For a while, she just sat there in shock, stammering in disbelief and unable to do or say anything; but when he slid the shoji open and the cold wind met her face, she suddenly succeeded in her struggle to recover her voice and her composure.

"Himura Kenshin…. get back inside _immediately_!!"

*     *     *     *     *

As luck would have had it, in the end, Kaoru had to resign herself to get to bed with Kenshin, praying to whoever could hear her that Kenji came back home while she was asleep. In spite of all the reassurances, she could not help it… she was sure that, once she had closed her eyes, she would be afraid to open them again for that reason. But what could she do? Whatever she thought, whatever she feared, everything always came down to one thing: she could not desert _him _now, under any circumstance.

"Kaoru-dono, you´re shivering…"

"Of course!" she pouted. "You´re already _inside_!"

Kenshin smiled weakly at this, and rolled to the side to leave more space. As she lay down, though, he regained part of what he had lost, and snuggled close to her.

"You´re shivering too, Kenshin", she noticed.

"Am I? Well… it must be the sudden change of temperature", he ventured awkwardly.

"Do you think that Kenji will be here tonight?"

"Yes, my love. Of course."

"Don´t treat me like a child!"

"Oro?"

"When he comes back..." Kaoru´s eyes gleamed dangerously. "When he comes back he´s going to wish that something _had _happened to him."

"So that the next time he will take care that it does?"

"Of course not!" she cried. "But I´m _seriously_ angry with him."

"Oh." For a moment, Kenshin had to cringe at the very idea of being in his son´s place. "Anyway…I don´t really think that you should. It´s my fault, after all…"

"Nonsense!" Kaoru wiped away a rebellious tear that had tried to escape her eye. "You were sleeping when everything happened."

"That doesn´t erase the fact that he knows he is going to lose his father, Kaoru", he answered, firmly but gently. That blunt statement took her by surprise, so much that she even closed her mouth that she had begun to open angrily once again. "You say it´s not my fault. If this is true, there isn´t anyone to blame. But as for him, it´s not only that he isn´t to blame; he´s the one who is going to suffer, and as such we should be able to help him when he asks for it and leave him alone when he asks for that, too."

"Maybe", she grumbled, somewhat ashamed at her outburst. "But he´s worrying me nonetheless, he could at least have told me where he went!"

Kenshin nodded, and then encircled her slender waist with his right arm.

"Agreed."

__

*     *     *     *     *

_"Atonement?"Her features were a perfect display of astonishment for a while, then suddenly twisted in ourtrage at the very idea. "But…but…this is nonsense! It was you yourself who said that the only possible way of atonement for you was to live on helping those who needed you and, and… never giving up!"_

_"So I said", he nodded. She could not possibly fathom the reason why his eyes, his countenance, his voice even, which had been so broken and forlorn that same morning, were so peaceful now, but unexpectedly she had found that, instead of making her happy, this was making her angrier. How could he keep that face and talk in that strain, like he never had talked or thought before? _

_Had he gone mad?_

_"So I said", he repeated even more calmly, as if getting wind of her thoughts somehow. "And so I say, Kaoru-dono."_

_"What?"_

_"Once the Bakumatsu ended, I took my non-killing sword and started to wander through Japan, atoning for my sins by helping the people who needed me, and waiting for my death. This was my path and my state of mind for ten years… until one day, at last, a cumulus of determinate circumstances forced me to question it. Then, I came to the only person who could help me to find my answer, and, by mastering the succession technique of the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu and discovering the will of living within myself, I was able to find what was missing. You know all this very well."_

_"Yes." Kaoru had no idea of where was he getting at, but she nodded._

_"Kaoru-dono…" Kenshin took a sharp breath, and looked at her in the eye. "The will of life, the will of atonement, the will of never giving up even…there aren´t any stronger forces in this world. They can always prevail over every other. However…they cannot always work miracles."_

_Kaoru´s eyes widened._

_"By what you have just said, I understand that you think I have given up and resigned myself to die. That´s wrong. I know that I am going to die whatever I do to prevent it, that´s all, for what´s already done is done, and fighting against it would be nothing but a useless waste of time. The resignation I feel comes from a wholly different source, it comes from the will of living itself! From the will of never giving up that I sought so hard to engrave in my heart when I learned the Ama Kakeru Ryu no Hirameki, and that I found within myself in the midst of the Jinchuu nightmare._

_"My body has changed, Kaoru. I have lost the Hiten Mitsurugi forever, I gave my sword away, and now I´m infected by the most hideous disease, and I know I´m going to die. To give up would be to think that, just because of this, my work is done, but I can´t give up. Not yet. On the contrary; to continue leading the life I chose to lead to atone for my sins… to continue fighting misery and disease… to appreciate your love and your care and trying to return it whenever I´m back, and while I am in pain and looking at Death face to face…**this**, I know, would be the way to finish what I have started, and make this scar fade away. That´s why it´s a gift for me, Kaoru… though…"_

_Suddenly snapped out of his heartfelt peroration by the sight of her tears, Kenshin´s words failed in his mouth, and he gasped. Cutting his speech short, and feeling as if he had just been hurled down from the heights he had reached, he closed his eyes, and embraced her with remorse. _

_"Though I already supposed you would not think so", he whispered in her ear, willing himself to sound calm and decided. "Ssshhh, my love. I know what you feel, and I won´t, I can´t do anything that might hurt you. I have told you because Tsubame-dono, Yahiko and Megumi-dono were right, you have the right to know everything and choose. You have carried the weight of my sins for far too long while being completely innocent, and now, if I stay with you forever, I won´t regret it for a single second. You deserve that more than anyone"_

_For a long while after Kenshin had said this, the room stayed completely silent. Kaoru could hear the quick beating of her own heart, the birds singing outside, and even the beating of Kenshin´s heart while he stayed there, waiting for her to say anything. And then, as her eyes were focused on his face…everything came to her mind in a flash._

_Years ago, when she had met him, she had been an innocent young girl. In an impulse, without thinking, she had said that she didn´t care for his past as the legendary hitokiri of the Ishin Shishi, just for the peaceful wanderer that was there in front of her eyes. She hadn´t understood why his guilt pushed him to get into conflicts that didn´t concern him anymore,  why there was still so much sadness in his glance even when he was smiling. However, after Jinchuu, this had changed. She had been permitted at last to have a glimpse not only inside his own mind and his terrible past, but also inside the mind of the person who had hated him through all those years. She had seen the reasons of that sadness and remorse, and she had understood him better, realizing that, as much as he tried, as much as she or anyone else tried, it was simply impossible to leave his past behind. Shunning it or facing it…that was all he could do. And then it had been when  she had made a determination that she had intended to keep more than anything else in the world, and decided to help him whatever the cost._ _She had accepted it when he had begun leaving her to help the people even without his sword, without a single look of regret in her smiling face. She had understood his motives, smothered her sadness, and, when he suffered for them, she suffered too, for them and for him._

_And that was clearly, simply, the reason why she couldn´t give up now._

_ "You surprise me", she said, swallowing the knot in her throat and raising her head defiantly. "I thought you had just said that you weren´t going to forsake all those people who are suffering. "_

_"Kaoru…dono?" Astounded, Kenshin lifted his head as well. "But…"_

_"There´s no reason to argue", she explained. "You are going to do what you have done for all those years, and that´s nothing but what we both  agreed to do. You are ready to overlook even the fact of your illness to stay true to your word, so why wouldn´t I? Listen, Kenshin…I love you, but I swear to you that, if you stay here I will be unhappy!"_

_The red haired man looked more overwhelmed than what he had been in his whole life. Kaoru saw him open his mouth several times, and then close it after trying to stammer something, until finally he took her hand in his and squeezed it very, very tightly, in a gesture that meant far more than any word he could have uttered. Some part of her still regretted the decision she had taken, for Kenji and for herself, but, as she thought then, just to see that look in his eyes, there was absolutely nothing she would not do. And Kenji loved him, she knew…so how could he not understand? _

_She would make him understand._

_"Kaoru-dono", he muttered. "Thank you. Thank you very much."_

Kaoru woke up from her restless slumber, and was surprised at finding herself holding Kenshin´s hand again. He looked soundly asleep, as if the scarce things he had done during the day had tired him to the extreme, and in his face she could distinguish clearly the wrinkles left by all his years of living, fighting and suffering. She still couldn´t believe that such a small and frail-looking man had been able to do all the things he had done… that he was going to do in spite of everything, as she corrected remembering their conversation. He was shrunk, but his spirit was not quenched.  Such a spirit… it could _never_ be quenched.

_And she loved him because of that._

"Kenshin… I…I won´t ever allow mine to be quenched as well. I will fight like you, I promise. As hard as you!" she whispered to the quietly sleeping figure before closing her eyes once more. 

_I owe it to you, Kenshin._

*     *     *     *     *

The wind was blowing harder when Kenshin woke up hours later, roused by a noise that had come from the opposite part of the house. Quickly, he struggled to his feet, though careful at the same time not to awake Kaoru and frighten her in the middle of the night. She was sleeping so soundly…

Kenshin furrowed his brow as he found his sandals in the dark, and tried to orientate himself in that ocean of darkness and feverish nausea. It had not been a hangover, he actually felt nausea now whenever he got up. Be it night or day, he had trouble locating himself.

"Who is there?" he whispered, forcefully shutting his eyelids as the light of a lamp in the kitchen hurt his eyes. "Kenji?"

The sound of something falling to the floor was the only answer to his question. He opened his eyes little by little. and saw his son staring at him horrified, as if he had been caught doing something inconfessable instead of just sneaking food after returning home soaked and hungry.

Or maybe, he corrected himself ruefully, as if he had been caught by _him._

"Kenji… You… do you know which hour it is? You have worried your mother very much with your absence, and me, too!" he started, settling for a stern tone as the easiest and less vulnerable one. He couldn´t understand how he could have reached such a brave determination just hours ago, and suddenly feel his spirit shrink to his feet once more at the mere sight of his son. "Don´t do anything like this again!"

"Is this all you have to say?" Kenji replied in a muffled voice. Then, he turned his back to his father again and returned to his task, which, as Kenshin realized now, hadn´t been eating, but throwing food inside a bag.

"Where are you going?" he asked, suddenly alarmed. There was no answer, except for the renoveled sound of Kenji´s endeavours.

"I have asked you a question", he repeated, now with a more severe voice. Silence floated over them for a while still; then, finally, his son´s back stiffened.

"I was leaving for Kyoto. For Hiko-san´s house… you know, to stay for a while. Outa lent me money for the trip", he said in a strangely jumpy tone. 

Kenshin was speechless.

"I know you are thinking that I´m hiding like a coward", Kenji kept on, still without turning back. "Maybe you´re right, I don´t know. But I only know one thing, and it´s that if I see your face even once again until I´ve been able to calm myself I…I won´t _ever_ calm myself."

Those words pierced Kenshin´s heart like daggers, and he had to undertake a great effort to keep his composure. Even if he didn't allow him to see his face, the worst of all was that he knew that Kenji´s hurt was even deeper, and that his young heart, in spite of what it could seem, was far more sensitive than his own. He inhaled deeply, and bowed his head as he went away, defeated.

"Though now… well, I suppose that my attempt kinda failed, didn´t it? You… eh?"

Distracted as he was, ki training told Kenji in time that there was nobody behind him anymore. Surprised, he jerked his head back, and there he could see his intuition confirmed by his own eyes. In spite of all the time he had spent putting his feelings in order, alone or with other people, he could not help but curse in a loud voice.

_Damn him._

If he kicked the table away now, he knew he would wake up his mother. But… what then? He had been discovered already, hadn´t he? In fact, the only rational thing now would be to take what he already had and run away. But, then again… surprisingly enough, Kenji didn´t even have the urge to go away anymore. All he felt was hurt, and confused. Who had his father gone to get? His mother, so that she would dissuade him from leaving because he didn´t have the guts of doing it himself? Or he had just turned his back on him, leaving him to do as he pleased?

Surprisingly enough, given his feelings of mere moments before, he could not tell right now which would be the worst option for him.

_Damn him. Damn him. Damn him!_

"Kenji."

"Uh?" Snapping out of his ardent thoughts, the boy retreated violently from the touch of a hand on his shoulder. Here was his father again… all alone. He was holding a bag with his right hand, and maybe it was because of all that sorrow in his gaze, but he looked much older than what he had the other day.

_Damn him forever!_

"This is for you, if you really want to leave", he said. Kenji stared in disbelief at the set of clothes, and then back to his father. " I leave you constantly, so it wouldn´t be fair of me to prevent you from doing the same, not to mention that I understand your reasons. But, Kenji…" The boy´s disbelief augmented as he spotted nothing short of a… _pleading _tone in his more-than-stubborn father. "If, pleading special circumstances, I could be able to have you delay your trip just for a week, even if it was just for a day, I…" Kenshin swallowed hard. "…I would be very thankful to you."

If he had been surprised and shocked before, this definitely left Kenji frozen in place. It was painfully and with a great effort that he started to recover from those words, and the first thing he did as soon as he was able to do anything was throw the bag to the floor. 

_Damn him!_ He did it on purpose. He had to do it on purpose! Otherwise… why did he _always _know what to say to shift positions, and make him feel guilty even while agreeing that everything was his damn fault? Why did that small and annoying redhead hold such power over him even when he had just made him feel so miserable?

_Why the hell had he felt relieved when he had come back?_

"Are you going to try to convince me again of why you should leave us even when mortally ill?" he spat, bitterly.

"No", Kenshin answered, getting on his knees to start picking up the clothes. " It would be useless, by the simple reason that I do not have anything else to add, except that everything will go on exactly as before."

"Oh, great!" Kenji couldn´t suppress a sneer, though it horrified him sounding almost like a sob. "It´s now that I learn that you like to hide the truth away from yourself."

"I do not hide it. I just keep living with it. This illness is a slow process, and I know I have still years to live, so" Kenshin´s voice was heightened in a small but significant degree. "I hold on to what I told you before. I will help those miserable people who need my assistance, I will atone for the hideous things I did, I will come back to your mother and to you, and, as I promised to you two days ago, I´ll be with you when you come of age and you will decide." 

Forcefully, he made it to his feet, and handed the bag again to the stunned Kenji. "This is all I can give to the people who need me, Kenji. I´m not a god, I´m not Heaven´s Justice, I´m just a man. A man cannot do everything he wishes... all he can do is keep going until it´s impossible for him to go forward anymore. There was just one time in my life when I really believed I could be a god… and I killed hundreds of people."

In inner pain after the words he had just been forced to utter, Kenshin retreated one step and sighed.  To his dismay, the bag Kenji held in his arms fell once more, and the boy covered his face with his hands.

"Kenji…" The fear of being rejected couldn´t compete anymore with his instincts, and Kenshin stepped forward to embrace him. The boy looked so grown up, almost a man... and yet, what could he do to avoid the tears at something that had even made the ex-hitokiri Battousai cry? He had tried to run far away, to Outa´s place, to Kyoto even, to hide those tears, but there was one thing that he still had to learn.

_He did not need to hide anything from him._

"Kenji..." he muttered, feeling a wave of cold as his yukata got wet from Kenji´s dampened kimono. "You´re soaked."

"I´ll go change myself", the boy muttered hoarsely.

*     *     *     *     *

The next morning, as he had strongly suspected, Kaoru´s mighty yells were the music that awoke Kenshin from his sleep. At first, before he ever regained full consciousness, he did what he could to shield his poor hurting head from the onslaught, but, when he had already resigned himself to get up, dress himself and mediate in the conflict, the noise mockingly disappeared.

Why did he always have to get up so late now, anyway?

Pondering those things ruefully, he slid the shoji open and dragged his feet towards the kitchen. Only his wife and Megumi were there when he entered, though the former looked about to leave for her lessons at the dojo, wooden sword in hand.

_Please, let her not have used that sword today yet…_he prayed.

"Good morning, Megumi-dono, Kaoru-dono!" he said with the most charming smile he had. Both immediately turned towards him, the first smiling and the second boiling.

"Good morning, Ken…"

"Why didn´t you tell me that Kenji was back?!"

"I… Because you were sleeping soundly, Kaoru-dono", he answered quickly, retreating at a prudential distance just in case. It was just as his Shishou had told him countless times… never get into the sword-range of an armed opponent. "I did not want to disturb you. Besides, we had some kind of private talk we both needed."

"Uh… Oh, yes, he told me about that." Just in a moment, the threatening master swordswoman turned back into his lovely wife in front of his eyes, making him laugh at the people who said that _he _had had dangerous personality disorders when he was younger. Why, wasn´t it evident that they hadn´t known Kaoru too well…

 "Once he managed to make himself be heard by chance", Megumi added thoughtfully, as she started to serve rice for Kenshin.

"Megumi-san!" Kaoru growled in warning… like always, leaving the doctor royally unimpressed.

"Don´t complain! I´m very upset with you for having woken my patient up with your yells", she continued. "He needs sleep, and look at what you do with him! Though, on the other hand… well, I suppose it´s a good thing that you solved it in such a short time. My head wouldn´t have stood for more."

"Solved it?" Kenshin sat in front of the table, surprised. "Solved what?"

"Once she managed to hear that short piece of information, she shut up and left him alone, all at a truly amazing speed", Megumi explained, giving him a wink while she handed him the rice bowl. "Temperamental girl if there ever was one…"

"Okay, okay." Kaoru put her hands on her hips, and threw her a full deathglare. "If you really need to bitch about me, you can do it as much as you want. As for me, though, I have _work_ to do, so I´m very sorry!"

"Kaoru-dono…" Kenshin started, conciliating. The only answer he got was the noise of a shoji being slammed shut, though… as he had imagined since before he started to speak.

"She´s happier today", Megumi commented, turning back to the kitchen pots.

"Yes." Kenshin nodded, and started to eat.

*     *     *     *     *

After he had cooked lunch together with Megumi, Kenshin spent some time watching Kenji in silence as he trained, until, at about noon, he decided to make some tea and bring it to the dojo. It was long since he had done it last... and now more than ever, he wished to do something for Kaoru, even something that petty.

"Excuse me…" he said, opening the shoji. At once, the shouts and the yells he had been hearing stopped and, as everybody turned back to look at him, a frightful realization came upon him that he had interrupted a match. Kaoru looked at him murderously, but, as she saw what he brought, her gaze softened and she beckoned him in.

"Kenshin!" Yahiko exclaimed, surprised. "Hey, thank you."

"You shouldn´t have bothered", the master of the dojo protested, handing her sword to Yutaro and taking the tray from his hands. "I´ll just leave it there for when we´ve finished. We were witnessing a combat, do you want to stay?"

Kenshin closed his eyes. Normally, he avoided staying in the dojo, but today, he didn´t know exactly why, to stay watching those happy boys from a corner didn´t look that difficult to him. Maybe…

"I was winning!" a voice protested, immediately countered by another.

"One can never know who is the winner until it´s over", Kaoru´s voice replied. "Kenshin…"

The red haired ex-master swordsman opened his eyes again, and took a look around him. There were some faces he did not recognize, and they were staring at him curiously as only a boy could do, whispering questions into the ears of the others. Suppressing a smile, he nodded, and sat down on a cushion Yahiko put  into a corner for him.

"Okay, after this little interruption, we will continue!" Kaoru yelled. "You two, get ready in front of me again and _stop _hitting each other at once!"

Kenshin sighed, assuming he had been forgotten again, and crossed his arms with a sad smile. Sometimes, he really couldn´t understand himself. It could very well be said that the sword and the sword training had been the cause of all his misfortunes, and yet it was unbelievable how the sound of young boys training with their bamboo weapons and yelling as they engaged in duels and practiced their techniques could rip his heart apart and provoke such a feeling of longing on him. Since he had been eight years old it had been his life, his only life even for many years, his sword…

_His Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu…_

The ex-swordsman stopped thinking in that strain, ashamed, and quickly waved his nostalgia off. It was good. It was fitting. After such devastating wars, the country was at last in peace, and the people lived happily. To carry swords had been forbidden, and the killing techniques of the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu were going to be buried too, already out of place in that new world where the pain of the ages couldn´t be relieved by killing anymore. Even he was going to be buried, with all that remained in him of phantom of the old era and symbol of the most terrible period of the country´s history… and was it even allowed to feel regret because of it?

_And yet_, he thought, _while I am still alive, I should be very grateful of being able to sit there, watching the exercises of those careless boys with their bamboo swords. Their playthings…Their games…_

"What? Sensei´s husband?" A shocked voice reached his ears, interrupting his thoughts. "You´re kidding!"

Curiously he lifted his head, and saw two boys, of about nine years old, sitting against the wall some five metres away from him.

"Shhh!" the other hissed, embarrassed. "He´ll hear you!"

"He´s much older than her", the first who had talked explained, apparently not caring much at all if he was heard or not. "He´s small and looks like a wimp. I always thought she had to be married to a strong man or something. She´s the strongest woman I know!"

"Quit that lovestruck look, you stupid!" the other boy sneered. "As for him, Hidashi told me he had been a swordsman one day."

"A _swordsman_?" It was not a cry of surprise, but of outrage. "No way! Which swordsman would serve tea to his wife? I even saw him doing laundry several times!"

"Hmm, I dunno… maybe because his wife is a swordsman too they do not work like a normal couple would? Yeah, I can´t deny she _is _special…"

"Hey! Who´s the one with the lovestruck look now?"

Kenshin smiled, and shook his head in amusement. Their conversation was so entertaining, so different from his own gloomy musings, that when he saw Yahiko coming towards them he almost regretted it. He would have liked to see how far their deductions carried them.

"What do you think you´re doing?" the young samurai shouted. "Stop slacking off and practice your kata!"

"Yes, Sensei!" both shouted at once, getting up. Yahiko looked at them dissapprovingly, and then turned towards Kenshin.

"Such lack of seriousness…"

"I wouldn´t speak of lack of seriousness there." the red haired man replied meekly. "It just looks as if kendo wasn´t their main interest or their path of life, that´s all. It doesn´t have to be, you know."

"Feh. I pray that Kaoru doesn´t soften up with old age as much as you!"

"Why not?" Kenshin shrugged his shoulders with an innocent smile. "Maybe it could be nice…"

In that moment, the children got into battle stance, and one of them started going through the motions of one of their katas. Both master swordsmen fell silent, watching them perform, and Kenshin could feel nostalgia creeping back inside him once more.

"The right leg", he muttered, half unconsciously.

Both boys turned immediately towards him, and the one who was badly positioned shot him a glare of surprise.

"Uh?"

"Put the right leg forward!", he repeated with a deep sigh that hid years and years of  bittersweet resignation, but that only Yahiko was able to spot. "If you lead with the left leg you´ll hurt yourself."

(To be continued in an epilogue)

Hmmm… this chapter was a real pain. Fortunately, is over. Now, there´s only an epilogue left, which will be published next week! Thanks very much to all! ^_^

Now, for the responses:

**Finch: **Hmmm… A good idea here. Do you think somebody would buy this story to make it into a movie…and do you think I would get something if they did? Hmmm….-ponders-.

**Oryo: **Thank you very much. About Kenji´s reaction…well, it´s not so horrible, after all. I believe that Kenji wouldn´t have antagonized his father just because of his illness, but because later, being ill, he went away on a long trip of which he would probably never return, leaving his mother alone. That was when he fled to Hiko´s house, at least.

**MissBehavin: **Well, Kenshin is not so horrible to do.  (Whispers) "When in doubt, blame yourself", that´s the true secret. ^_^

**Aino Saori: **Hmmm… Yes, I agree that his behaviour here, as in Seissou Hen, can be called selfish towards the people he loves. But, contrary to what many people think, I do not see that Seissou Hen selfishness as "out of character", and that´s what I tried to express in this fic. For me, it´s a perfectly natural conclusion of his life as it had been led. (As Hiko said "Well, your selfishness isn´t anything new!") Kenshin´s selfishness springs from generosity, from trying to help as many people as there are within his reach. He realized he couldn´t help certain people if he did not forsake others, and he went for those who needed him the most. He´s trapped in his own reasoning. ^_^

**CEEGEE: ** The OVAs are original animated videos. There are two sets of RK OVAs, Tsuioku Hen or Remembrances (four OVAs) and Seissou Hen or Reflections (two). The first four are about Kenshin and Tomoe, and the others about the lives of the characters, especially Kenshin and Kaoru, from the end of the manga to Kenshin´s death. Even if they are controversial, you should give them a try!

Oh, and thank you very much for your compliments.

**AiteanE: **Thanks, thanks (bows). It´s not so difficult to get into their heads…their earholes can provide a good entrance… Oh, but I advise you to be extremely thin if you are going to try. ^_^

**Crystal Fragments: **Thank you very much for the link! It really helped. Usually, people write to me saying that Kenshin´s disease was not syphilis, but nobody tells me about a valid alternative. While you just went and gave me a link! Oh, thank you, really…

**Supernatural Love: **Yay! A Seissou Hen supporter! They´re so rare nowadays…

You´re right, making Kenshin survive his illness would have agreed with the message the RK story is supposed to give. But it´s also more or less impossible: once syphilis was fairly advanced there was no way to cure it wholly, and much less in a person who had been weakened by the strain put in his body by the Hiten Mitsurugi ougi. Besides…we know that he died from that three years later, don´t we? But I assume that, for him, struggling against an incurable disease was not so important as keeping on living and helping people until the very last moment, as he did in Seissou Hen

**Shandy g: **Here is the next one. (poses) Thank you!


	6. To Look Into Her Eyes

**To Look Into Her Eyes**

**Epilogue: To Look Into Her Eyes**

"Thank you very much, sir."

Kenshin bowed his head slightly, and staggered under the weight of the bag of "indispensable things" that Kaoru had prepared for him the other day. As he could see, the days of rest surrounded by his loved ones had left indubitable effects on him, like his sudden laziness and unwillingness to carry heavy weights, but this would disappear in a day or two, or so he hoped.

He wasn´t dead yet, was he?

"Who is there? I repeat it, we´re full!" 

"It´s me", he answered with a smile, even if the growl of the nurse had made him cringe. As the woman recognized him, though, her tone softened, and she seemed only too glad to beckon him in. 

"Oh… sorry, I thought it was…! Well, never mind." She shook her head, and thoughtfully rubbed her eyes. "Welcome back, Himura-san, we were eagerly expecting your return. There´s so much work here!"

"So I supposed", he answered, following her into the darkness of the old and unhealthy building. At first, as always, his eyes as well as his nose had to undertake a great effort to get used to the place, but this time, much to his worry, he actually found himself about to have a fit of nausea.

"Oh, _don´t_ tell me you´re ill, too, Himura-san", a male voice greeted him with concern. Kenshin willed himself to act normal once more, and raised his head to meet the youngest of the doctors.

"Nice to see you again", he said politely, and then smiled. "I'm thankful for your concern, but I´m really fine. The trip was very tiring, though."

"So… do you want to rest?"

"No." Kenshin´s answer was adamant as he laid his bag on the floor. "I come to work."

"Oh, of course, of course." The hidden amazement in the doctor´s voice and in the nurse´s glance was, as always, more than apparent to Kenshin, so he paid no heed to it. He was already more than used to the strange ideas everybody in the hospital had about him. Apparently, to see someone who just wanted to _help _was so impossible in this world that they thought he was a member of some weird sect, or that he was here to fulfil a promise, or maybe to atone for something he had done in the past. Which, by the way, was more or less the fact, though he knew that he had always wanted to help people, regardless of any vow or promise.

"And I´d wish to ask you a question as well" he added. "It´s about a woman I was caring for before I went away….Hanaoka Akiko." 

"Uh? Oh, she…." The doctor´s eyes flashed briefly with something akin to sudden remembrance. "The woman that made you stay here for some more weeks the last time, if I´m not mistaken…"

Kenshin swallowed with difficulty.

"Is she…?"

"Hanaoka Akiko is alive", the nurse informed him, taking his bag in spite of his efforts to prevent it, and shrugging her nose as if she was angry with the fact. "According to every prevision, she _should _have died already, but the fact is that she wakes up every morning. And, you know, there are people waiting to take her couch."

"I guess so", Kenshin muttered, doing an effort not to snap at her for her lack of sensitiveness. After all, who was he to act self-righteous? Who had "killed them well" years ago? Not that nurse, if he remembered correctly. "I would wish to see her now."

 "Oh, but certainly", The doctor turned back, and beckoned him to follow. "Besides, I´m sure she will be very happy to see you. If she´s who I think she is, she spent every single day since you went away calling for Shinta."

The red haired man´s eyes widened at that.

"Re… really?"

"Really. And I daresay very astounding, given that she doesn´t keep record of anything else. She has to like you quite a lot, Himura-san."__

As he followed the man through the dark and smelly corridor, Kenshin wondered once more why it was that every time he heard somebody uttering that name he felt that inside him, as if someone had ripped him apart and taken the secret from his insides. After all, it had been him who had given them and others that name. He still did not know if he had done it by simple instinct, because he felt that Kenshin hadn´t an appropriate sound for those places, or because his natural uneasiness at having his past identity discovered in every place where he intended to pass as an ordinary person became sheer horror once he stepped inside this segregated world. If he had been asked why he felt that, though, he wouldn´t have known how to answer.

_This name is too weak for a swordsman… From now on, your name will be Kenshin._

Instinct, most probably.

"Was the trip too tiresome? I head that some trains had to stop several times because of the floods."

"Um? Oh… yes, mine was actually stopped for half a day. I could use the time to sleep a bit, though, so I suppose it was a good thing", he answered quickly, dismissing his thoughts. "But tell me… were there any problems during my absence?"

"Problems? Apart from the usual ones, you mean, like overflow and such?" The doctor snorted discreetly, then spared a brief glance to another nurse that passed them in the opposite direction. "I don´t understand how so many people can still get that thing. When is true modernization going to reach this country? There´s still a sad lack of means, of hygiene, of morals… Sheeesh."

"I believe that what you call modern countries haven´t get rid of that problem either", Kenshin noted, somewhat acidly. "And maybe they never will. You know… there never has been a world without disease, and I find it very difficult even to imagine it."

"Well, you should know about the advances there have been in Western medicine. Believe me, there won´t be a disease that cannot be cured in this world in just a few years."

"Really?"  Kenshin could not hide his scepticism as he asked that question. He knew a woman who was much more knowledgeable about those things than what that man would ever be, and she had told him several times about her doubts. Besides… those people who talked about ultimate cures and the advances of medicine without caring for those who lay ill next to them could not help but remind him of hitokiris who talked about an era of peace while they killed. From things he had heard from that man´s lips he knew that he would be happy if he could do research in the West and make himself a name, instead of being stuck in a hospital of incurables… but, as for how could an ultimate cure be discovered by someone who didn´t feel an inch of true compassion towards his patients, no, even worse, by someone who, influenced by European ideals, added a weight of moral guilt to their shoulders, Kenshin could not tell .

"I´m absolutely certain of it. But I´m aware that it may sound as some kind of big idealistic joke to non-specialised people, so let´s not argue about the issue anymore", the doctor said, as he turned to give him a him a conciliating look. "And, anyway…here we are."

Standing still, Kenshin watched how the young man slid open the shoji of the terminal patients´room. For a moment, he braced himself for the foul odour that he knew was going to invade his nostrils, then remembered, and forced himself to relax. It was in that precise second, when the strongest realization of how much things had changed came upon him, and his mind staggered under the weight of the knowledge that he was not entering an alien world anymore.

He was home.

"Well… I´m afraid I must leave you now, Himura-san", the doctor´s voice interrupted his musings. "A nurse will come here in several minutes, I promise."

"Do… do not worry. I….I will be fine", he stammered, still dazed. In the distance, he spotted the dirty couch besides which he had last stood two weeks before, and started to walk towards it, as if drawn by an alien force.

"She´s most probably asleep", the man said before he left.

Without paying attention to his voice, Kenshin sat down, bending over the lean figure on the couch. His insides could not help but be twisted at the pitiful sight offered to his eyes, for in those two weeks that he had spent with his family and friends, she had changed so much that now she was barely recognizable. If she had been thin before, now she seemed little more than a skeleton wrapped in skin, her face was also beginning to be affected by wounds and breakings, and the pale, yellowish colour of her skin could have made viewers believe that all blood had departed from her veins long ago. Even Kenshin would have thought she was already dead, if it hadn´t been for her tormented breathing.

_Like her,_ his mind could not help but think, while he got even nearer and took her hand into his to feel her pulse. _You will end your days like her, Himura Battousai. _His lips twisted in an ironical smile at the thought. To think that everything would come to this in time…

"No!" Suddenly snapping awake, the woman´s face twisted in fear, and she jerked herself away from him with all her remaining strength. "Leave me alone, please! I haven´t done anything to you!"

"Ssssshhh." Kenshin forced himself to remember what the doctor had told him, that she had been calling his name. If this was true… maybe she would still recognize him. "It´s me, Akiko-dono. Do you… remember me? I promised I would return…"

"Shinta?" 

At first it was disbelief. Then, her body relaxed painfully, and, as the evidence began to sink in her clouded mind, she suddenly found a new unexpected strength inside her, and stretched her arms to pull him by the kimono into her space. Kenshin retreated almost imperceptibly, and took her hands into his.__

 "Shinta…." 

Slowly and gently, the red haired man laid her back on her couch, and looked deeply into her eyes. The colour in them was waning, leaving an unnatural reddish hue on them, and they were so swollen that she looked somewhat unreal. However, they were also gleaming with some kind of joyful light, and beneath the layers of mist which clouded them he could see that, once, they had been soft brown.

She was crying.

"So you… you too… You came…"

"She´s delirious", the recently arrived nurse intervened. "She lost it long ago." 

"No!" Akiko cried. Her smile widened still more, even as tears mingled with blood trailed down her cheeks. "He knows now, he does. I have seen them. I have seen… his eyes."

Violet orbs widened then in shock.

_The eyes._

"What is she talking about, Himura-san? Do you have a clue?"

Kenshin bowed his head, bent by a sudden overwhelming sensation of poignant remorse, and at the same time of warm and complete understanding. He hadn´t understood wholly before, he had even dared to question it, but now, just by looking into the eyes of that woman, the answer, the reason behind everything, was clearly displayed in front of him. So simple.

_He could never have possibly known before._

 "I´m sorry", he muttered, letting go of her hands and embracing her. For a moment, he had the impression that he was embracing a shadow, so frail and unresponsive her body was. A strong smell of dry blood and rotten bandages reached his nostrils, and he noticed belatedly that his kimono had been drenched by the red fluid as well. "I´m very sorry, Akiko-dono." __

"Himura-san… oh!"

Kenshin ignored the nurse´s gasp, and just stayed there embracing the woman, who, for the first time, was looking as blissful as if she was already in peace. Through his mind, many scenes passed in a rush, of the last parting day, and of the farewells of his friends. Kaoru had smiled, but there had been tears in her eyes when she had muttered that she was very, very proud of him. Megumi was hiding her true emotions, as usual, when she made him promise he was going to follow her instructions and take care of himself. Tsubame and Yahiko had taken him to the station, trying to smile and talk to him while their expression was sad, and Kenji… his son had had an unreadable expression he had never seen in his face, as he told him he could leave whenever he wanted because he was old enough not to need him anymore. He felt guilty even now, maybe precisely _now _that he knew how would all have to end, and would feel so again whenever he remembered them. And yet….

And yet, he thought, if there was something he had learned for sure, through all his past experiences, if there was something he would never forget again as he once had done, it was that _he was just a man. _Nothing more than a single, imperfect, anonymous man, who, after turning useless for swordsmanship, had received yet another painful gift that he was in the obligation to use until the end. 

And so he would do.

"Himura-san, it´s… it´s dangerous to do that! The blood…"

"No", he muttered, leaving the nurse gaping in deep shock as he carefully laid the cold corpse back on the couch. "Not anymore."

(The end)


End file.
